NO SOCIALIZING
(The no socializing section of the Fundamentals of Co-Counseling Manual was printed on blue paper in early editions, to call it to the attention of the students. This was the origin of the term "blue pages" which is today a by-word throughout the Re-evaluation Counseling communities.)
The No-Socializing Guideline supports and protects the one-point program of RC. It is not intended to limit our thinking about each other or limit the love, caring, and commitment we have for each other. As our relationships develop, we learn to love, care for, and assist each other. All people inherently love all other people—and almost everyone naturally comes to love their Co-Counselors.
A Co-Counselor who associates another person with RC at the beginning of their relationship is likely to expect, awarely or unawarely, that the person associated with RC will act as their counselor in the relationship.
If we socialize with someone who is already Co-Counseling, both people have a tendency, whether noticed or not, to depend on each other instead of being fully responsible. The new relationship will be built on the basis of patterns and will likely fail because of the lack of thinking, and the Co-Counseling relationship will eventually be damaged. This is a significant loss because the Co-Counseling relationship provides some of the most important support any two people can give each other.
Adding activities to a Co-Counseling relationship that do not have re-emergence as the goal is also a drain on the resources of the RC Community.
This has been the long-term experience in the RC Community.
Because of the mistreatment we have endured, most of us start Co-Counseling with strong “frozen needs” for companionship, love, cooperation, help, and commitment from others. (A “frozen need” results from the hurt of a real need not having been met in the past. When this hurt is restimulated, we often feel it as a present need.) These “needs” are part of distress recordings and cannot be filled; they can only be discharged. Supportive Co-Counselors can seem to be the “answer” to all present and past needs, because we have learned how to be thoughtful of each other. This will often appear as romantic feelings, sexual feelings, or the desire to “spend time with each other.” A Co-Counselor can also seem to be, for example, the perfect business partner, friend, or “mother or father I never had.”
Also, undischarged feelings of urgency and obligation can make us feel like we need to “solve” our Co-Counselors’ difficulties in a patterned way instead of counseling them through their difficulties to where they solve their own problems. However, we are only committed to helping each other discharge on and re-evaluate the distresses that interfere with our lives. That is all that is required in the Co-Counseling relationship.
It takes a long time for most of us to discharge our feelings of loneliness, helplessness, obligation, and fear of other people. Because of this and the oppressions in society, we continue, until we have discharged enough, to be drawn to the “comfortable” patterned behavior of socializing with Co-Counselors (including helping them).
We can fulfill our human need for aware, supportive social relationships by adding Co-Counseling to the relationships we already have with our friends and acquaintances. When we socialize with “non-Co-Counseling” people, we usually take more responsibility for the relationships. In addition, as we discharge, we get better at building and enjoying good relationships. We can use these skills to share RC with people who are not already in RC.
To address these issues the RC Community has adopted Guideline M.1.