That all members of the Re-evaluation Counseling Community are peers. That we value and respect each other's essential humanness without reservation.
This follows from our theory but is also of great importance practically.
An individual may fill a special role in the Community. One may have more knowledge, more experience, may communicate better than another at a given time and may have had more counseling than another, may have more awareness, or be more rational in a particular area. None of this changes our essential peerness.
We need to be clear that all special roles which individuals will assume be to the service of the network of peers. We do not wish to absorb into our Community any patterns of hierarchy, professionalism, or leaders versus followers. Any special role which one of us holds should be because of ability and by acceptance of responsibility only, not because of position, title, or prestige.
That the Co-Counseling relationship be recognized as a unique opportunity to move toward total re-emergence of the human.
That members of the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities socialize with people outside the Re-evaluation Counseling Community (unless they were social companions before they became interested in Re-evaluation Counseling) as a general rule. That any get-togethers that do take place between members of the Re-evaluation Counseling Community be organized with a re-emergent purpose, so that the people are together primarily for discharge, for re-evaluation and for group counseling activity, with any food or entertainment being only supportive of this main purpose.
That people who have learned to Co-Counsel and ask to become members of the Re-evaluation Counseling Community be told that to be members of the Community requires that they agree to the "No-Socializing" Principle as outlined above and agree to respect it.That any Co-Counselor or leader who does not respect the no-socializing agreement and persists in violating it be clearly told that they are thereby disqualifying themselves from being current, and possibly future, leaders and teachers by this. That Co-Counselors not be recommended for leadership or certified as teachers unless they have made plain their acceptance of the no-socializing agreement.
This proposal supports and protects the one-point program of Re-evaluation Counseling.
We want to create and maintain a safe environment for all people (particularly youth, women and other members of oppressed groups). Further, we do not want any undischarged patterns about human relationships to interfere with the full development and maintenance of the safety and trust necessary to make the Co-Counseling relationship an effective one.
The basic Re-evaluation Counseling principle concerning multiple relationships between the same persons is that each such relationship must be awarely and responsibly maintained by each of the parties separate from each of the other relationships. Since it will take a long time for all of us in Re-evaluation Counseling to discharge our feelings of loneliness and fear of other people, the more "comfortable" socializing with Co-Counselors will be a continuing patterned attraction. The experience in the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities has been that establishing social relationships with Co-Counselors can be deleterious to the counseling relationship and a drain on the resources of the Re-evaluation Counseling Community. The human need of all of us to have aware, supportive social relationships can be fulfilled by bringing people who are already our friends and acquaintances into the counseling relationship.
If we do our socializing with "non-Co-Counseling" people, we will tend to take responsibility for the relationship. In addition, our heightened abilities to set up and enjoy good relationships with persons who are not already in Re-evaluation Counseling will enable us to share our information and skills more widely.
If we get together instead with people who are already Co-Counseling, there will be a tendency, whether noticed or not, to "lean" on the other people instead of being responsible ourselves. If get-togethers do have a planned Co-Counseling content, then an incidental meal or song fest or "creative show-and-tell" will only assist in discharge and in the effectiveness of a get-together which is basically for Co-Counseling.
Because of the mistreatment people endure in their lives before they become Co-Counselors, many people enter counseling with great "frozen needs" for companionship, for love, for cooperation, for commitment from others. (We use the term "frozen need" to describe needs that are part of distress patterns which were installed in the past but which feel as if they are real present needs to their victims when they are restimulated.)
These "needs" cannot be filled but only discharged. Co-Counselors in the process of acting like supportive counselors to each other will often tend to seem to be the "answer" to all the needs of the past because of the thoughtfulness which we learn to extend to each other. This attraction will often take the form of romantic feelings, sexual feelings, or the desire to "spend time with each other," but the person can often also appear as the perfect business partner, "the mother or father I never had," etc. It is not that Co-Counselors should not or must not love each other. Basically all people inherently love all other people, and almost everyone comes to love their Co-Counselors very naturally and properly. That is no problem.
If a "socializing relationship" is entered into however, even if the patterns of both parties are equally enthusiastic, it will eventually spoil the Co-Counseling relationship, which relationship is by far the most important support that they can give each other.
If a Co-Counselor persists in pursuing a social or any other non-Co-Counselor relationship with someone that he or she first met through the Co-Counseling connection, even after every reasonable effort has been made to assist the person in reaching a rational position, the Community is no longer obligated to provide its resources to that individual.
Co-Counselors cannot become or remain leaders or teachers in the Community unless they can model this amount of responsibility for others.
While every leader must take responsibility for her or his own re-emergence, from a different perspective, every non-temporary group of Co-Counselors in our Communities is encouraged to take responsibility for the counseling and re-emergence of its leader.
That on an ongoing basis, initiated either by the group or the leader, a special meeting of the group be called for counseling the leader. That the leader then speak to the group as client, giving as good a description of the difficulties, needs and possible assistance as he or she possibly can, answer questions from the group members and otherwise communicate.
That the leader then be excused from the group meeting and, in her or his absence, the group discuss the situation, mini-counsel if indicated and prepare a possible approach to assisting the leader as a client, including designation of counselor, coaches, attitude of group, etc.
That the leader then be called back into the group meeting and the prepared approach to counseling the leader be put into operation. If it succeeds, counselors are designated to carry on in the future.
That if it does not succeed, then the previous steps be repeated, at the same or following meetings, until an approach does succeed.
A multitude of cultural patterns have, in the past, acted toward the neglect of effective counseling for any individual who assumed leadership responsibilities.
These procedures enlist the resources of the group in an effective way to overcome this.
That we seek cooperation and agreement on policy among members of the Co-Counseling Community through rational communication and discussion of issues, through reference to basic theory and to our long-range goals and through putting differences up to discharge and re-evaluation. That we be on guard to prevent one rational attitude being out-voted by many irrational attitudes.
There is continual pressure against the logical consistency of our theory, both from individual patterns and from the patterns which are enforced by society. This pressure for inconsistency sometimes takes the form of incorrect theory and at other times the form of eclecticism. It is essential that we preserve the existing body of workable theory and practice from any well-meant dilution or distortion. As we all become more rational through discharge and re-evaluation, we become more able to discuss and handle irrationalities. There can be no substitute, however, for the hardest thinking about which policies and actions are in fact rational. This process can best be accomplished through a working consensus.
That in the event of difficulty in agreeing on policy we proceed with the following steps:
An ultimate decision procedure is necessary. When prior discussion cannot determine satisfactory policy with certainty, then decision and beginning to carry out that decision is necessary before feedback information from the results of that decision can clearly show whether correction is in order. Prolonged vacillation or lack of decision becomes a magnet for attracting and restimulating grievance and controversy patterns. In the rare event of agreement not being reached with discussion, the International Reference Person will logically play the role of decision maker.
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