A. THE RE-EVALUATION COUNSELING COMMUNITY[1]
A.1. What is the RC Community?
The Re-evaluation Counseling (RC) Community consists of people who participate in and take responsibility for local and international RC activities. (See Guideline A.4. The Membership of the Community.) We think of our Community[2] in three ways:
- We are an international network of people who are each regaining access to our full, individual intelligence[3] and innate humanness[4] by using a process called Re-evaluation Counseling or Co-Counseling.
- We are a network of local RC classes, groups, and Communities.
- We are a group of people who offer the tools of RC to people everywhere and invite them to join us in an effort to regain our innate humanness and access to our full intelligence.
We have Guidelines to guide the work of the RC Community and to help us think about our functioning together. We apply our Guidelines flexibly to encourage and support the development of diverse Communities.[5]
REASON
The central purpose of the RC Community is to offer people the opportunity to resolve past hurtful experiences and recover access to their full intelligence through Co-Counseling, discharge, and re-evaluation. Our basic role with each other is the peer exchange of this counseling.
All classes, groups, and Communities exist to support and extend the network of Co-Counselors. We work together to make RC theory[6] and practice available to all people. Freeing human intelligence from the effects of hurts may have profound implications for the world.
Because distresses can interfere with our innate abilities to think rationally and to function well together, we need agreed-upon guidelines. In almost all cases, the Guidelines are not meant to be rules; they do not dictate how to handle every situation in RC. They challenge us to use our experience to develop our best thinking about our current situations and not simply apply first thoughts or old solutions. There are some Guidelines that have the force of a requirement and are to be followed as written. (See page ii. print version.)
[1] Definitions of terms commonly used in RC can be found here: rc.org/glossary. Terms that are used in these Guidelines but not so commonly used in our daily practice are in the Glossary at the back of this publication.
[2] Community is capitalized throughout this document when it refers to the RC Community.
[3] RC theory defines intelligence as the ability to create a new, flexible, creative response to each new situation. RC theory is based on the assumption that all people are vastly intelligent, but that undischarged distress experiences interfere with our intelligence. Our practice has shown that as we discharge and re-evaluate to heal from distress experiences, we regain access to our flexible intelligence, which includes our sense of connection with others, our abilities to care about and cooperate with others, and a zest for life.
[4] Humanness refers to what RC theory, based on our practice, describes as the nature of humans when we are not under the effects of distress recordings. This includes acting based on intelligence, a sense of connection, a caring and cooperative nature, and a zest for life.
[5] Some Guidelines have the force of a requirement for being part of the RC Community and are to be followed as written. (See page ii. print version.)
[6] RC theory is a summary of information gained from the experiences of Co-Counselors that guides the practice of RC. It allows us to relate our individual experiences to what has already been experienced. We also build on our theory as we try and learn new things. Our theory continues to develop as our knowledge and understandings grow.