More Techniques
The Exchange of Roles
In dealing with past experiences of mistreatment, the counselor asks the client to "threaten" the counselor with a description of past abuse or mistreatment which has probably happened to the client. Example: "I'm going to hurt you physically, George. I'm going to ----- (a description of any kinds of ways of physically hurting the counselor that the client can imagine). (The hurt is threatened, not carried out.) New threats are made as quickly as the client can think of them and can be repeated many times. Profound, heavy discharge tends to take place voluminously and can be pursued to the complete discharge of the distress. Other examples of threats: "I'm going to abuse you sexually, Herman. I'm going to ------."
This technique is also very effective in discharging distress left on the client by oppression. "I'm not black, Samuel, you are" (said by a black person to the counselor), "and I'm going to treat you the way blacks are treated in this society. I'm going to -------." or "I'm not Jewish, Elizabeth, you are, and I'm going to "Holocaust" you; I'm going to -----."
"Why Do You Love Me, Counselor?"
The counselor directs the client to ask this question of the counselor repeatedly while the counselor looks pleasantly or fondly at the client. Usually discharge is immediate and will continue for a long time. If it stops, the counselor requests the client to ask the question again. The counselor may at any time indicated by his or her judgment give admiring reasons why he or she loves the client which would seem reasonable in a rational situation. (The counselor may take advantage of special knowledge which the counselor has about the client.) Some examples: ". . . because you're loveable," ". . . because you are such a darling person," " . . . because you love me," etc.
The Reality Agreement
This procedure works profoundly well. Many people, once started discharging in this way, are able to keep discharging for long periods of time after the session while they are engaged in other activities.
The counselor speaks as follows:
"For this to work it is necessary that you and I are in agreement that the actual reality of the universe is completely different than the pseudo-reality which is offered to us as a substitute for reality. Do you agree?" The counselor waits patiently while the client thinks through the issue, answers any asked questions, or does whatever else is necessary for the client to reach agreement on the issue. When the client has agreed, the counselor then says, "It's also necessary that we be in agreement that the part of reality which consists of you, yourself, is completely distinct from and different from the pseudo-reality which the culture of the oppressive society, the oppressions, the patterns, and the false information which we receive offers you as a description of yourself; that the actual reality of you is completely distinct from this pseudo- reality. Are we in agreement on this?" When the client has clarified this in his or her mind and agrees, the counselor then says, "I'm going to ask you some questions. I need your agreement that you will answer these questions only from reality and not allow the pseudo-reality to be any part of your answer. Do you agree to this?"
If the client agrees, the counselor then relaxedly, but with clear attention to the client, asks the client a series of basic questions about himself or herself. A good beginning question is, "How good are you?" The counselor waits for the client to answer, allows any discharge to take place, and if the client expresses any reservation in the answer such as, "I'm mostly good," or "I'm often good," the counselor reminds the client that his or her answer should reflect actual reality, and, if necessary, ask the client, "Can you say that you are completely good?" Days and days of discharge are often elicited by the client keeping this agreement, even when away from the counselor or going about his or her usual activity by himself or herself.
Questions that have been found to be useful are: "How innocent are you?" "How pure are you?" "How competent are you?" "How intelligent are you?" "How powerful are you?" etc. etc. The counselor can think of many other ingenious questions about the reality of the client.
Again, this procedure tends to have a profound and continuing positive effect on the re-emergence of the client.
"You and Me, Counselor"
In this the counselor asks the client in a cheerful, friendly voice to say to the counselor, "You and me, Jane (John), completely close, forever," followed each time by the client's first thought and the discharge that will tend to occur. Once begun, the client will often tend to keep discharging for a long time even after he or she stops as soon as they remember the expectation of the counselor that he or she will say the phrase again. This procedure seems to be very effective in contradicting the accumulation of distress over being separated from other people.
The "Generalized Understatement"
In this procedure, the counselor asks the client to say a carefully crafted statement of positive reality that will not provoke continuing resistance by the client to acceptance of it as true once it has been repeated a few times. Once the client has memorized the statement and is able to keep repeating it, the counselor asks the client to allow any discharge to take place that is tending to come up (the discharge can take any of the usual forms and tends to be different, in general, for each client. Some people will only yawn, some will laugh easily, etc., whenever they try to say the statement. Sometimes the client may have to repeat it as long as ten minutes before it begins to show its profound effect).
The first discovered prototype of such statements was, "It sometimes happens that someone likes somebody." Many other such statements have evolved and additional ones can be crafted by a thoughtful counselor.
The effectiveness of this procedure is possibly because the repetition of the unthreatening, un-needed-to-be-argued-with statement of some aspect of positive reality roots the attention of the client firmly in the reality. Once this has happened this allows the patterned thoughts that will tend to keep being brought up by the client's mind to be contradicted by the reality position that the client has unawarely taken, and the patterned portions will be kept turning to discharge.
Harvey Jackins