Topics to Cover in Fundamentals Class

  • Contradiction/counseling with attention away from distress
  • Validation
  • Complete Appreciation/Reality Agreement
  • Intermittent/chronic patterns
  • Identifications
  • Dramatizing vs. discharging
  • "Who's in Charge" in The Human Situation
  • Feelings are not a reliable guide to action/holding directions outside of session/ addictions/ "Logic of Being Completely Logical" in The Human Situation
  • Choosing Not to be Restimulated
  • Counseling on Physical Distress
  • "Nature of the Learning Process" in The Human Situation
  • "Necessity of Long-Range Goals" in The Human Situation
  • Oppression/liberation generally
  • Racism
  • Classism
  • Sexism
  • Men's Oppression
  • Identity - "claim it, discharge it, throw it away"
  • Counseling with Commitments
  • Reclaiming Power
  • "Don't Take it Personally" in A Better World
  • "The Central Importance of Contradiction" in A Better World
  • Exchange of Roles
  • Keeping counseling notebooks
  • A Rational Theory of Sexuality and Counseling on Early Sexual Memories (Pamphlets)
  • Relationships/frozen needs
  • Counseling children/family work
  • "You & Me, Counselor," from "An Exciting New Counseling Approach" in The Kind, Friendly Universe, page 47
  • Generalized understatement
  • The Enjoyment of Leadership
  • RC Literature as a Tool for Re-emergence
  • Bringing Friends into RC
  • The Guidelines/The RC Community
  • "Give Up False Expectations and 'Disappointment'" in Start Over Every Morning, page 3, or Present Time, No. 72

A Possible List of Fundamentals Class Reading Assignments

  • Fundamentals Manual (assigned over a couple of weeks)
  • "Counseling with Attention Away from Distress"
  • "The Complete Appreciation of Oneself" in The Human Situation
  • article on the Reality Agreement in The Kind, Friendly Universe, pages 23 and 39
  • "The Nature of the Learning Process" in The Human Situation
  • "A Fourth Point" in Start Over Every Morning, page 131
  • "Who's in Charge" in The Human Situation
  • "The Logic of Being Completely Logical" in The Human Situation
  • "Flexible Human in the Rigid Society" in The Human Situation
  • "Human Liberation" in The Human Situation
  • Articles from The Upward Trend on oppression and liberation
  • "Discussion Towards a Classless Society" in A Better World
  • The Liberation of Asians
  • Internalized Oppression
  • "The Chronic Patterns of Classism" in A Better World
  • "The Discharge of Patterns of White Racism by White Co-counselors" in A Better World
  • Journal of their choice (to be reported on in class)
  • The Liberation of Men
  • A Rational Theory of Sexuality
  • Counseling on Early Sexual Memories
  • Relationship handouts
  • How Parents Can Counsel Their Children (pamphlet - first part)
  • "The Frontiers of Co-Counseling" in A Better World
  • "Don't Take it Personally" in A Better World
  • "The Central Importance of Contradiction" in A Better World
  • "Commitment to the Upward Trend" in A Better World
  • "On the Trail of Powerlessness" in A Better World
  • "Counseling as a Tool for Freeing a Person of Particular Physical Distress Symptoms or Particular Kinds of Non-Survival Behavior" in A Better World
  • "The Necessity of Long-Range Goals" in The Human Situation
  • "Bringing Friends Into Co-Counseling" in The Human Situation
  • "Give Up False Expectations and 'Disappointment'", by Harvey Jackins, in Start Over Every Morning, page 3, or Present Time, No. 72, page 36
  • The Enjoyment of Leadership
  • Structure of the RC Communities (handout)
Plus, of course, a subscription to Present Time.

Mary Ruth Gross


Last modified: 2022-12-25 10:17:04+00