Using RC Literature in Co-Counseling Sessions
Some of the RC literature is especially good as an aid to discharge. The poems in Zest Is Best,1 and the scrolls,2 have been useful that way for me.
Recently I have been reading aloud in my Co-Counseling sessions articles from the RC journal Well Being,3 as I am preparing for surgery. Sometimes I discharge a lot; other times very little. In today’s session I discharged very little while reading an article, but afterward my whole outlook was better—just as it is after I discharge vigorously.
Over the years I have tried many times to read the RC literature aloud in my sessions. Often my counselors have trouble with this. They become frustrated if I am not discharging. They think I am using the literature as a crutch, or avoiding discharge, and try to get me to discharge and stop reading. But for me, just reading the literature is a contradiction.4 It broadens my whole outlook and adds greatly to my understanding of RC and the world. And I am not likely to read it by myself.
Pam Geyer writes, “The counselor needs to discharge (usually with someone else) what gets in the way of being relaxed and delighted with [a] client” (Well Being No. 6, page five).
For those of you who enjoy reading the RC literature, and read a new RC publication cover-to-cover as soon as you receive it, try reading some of the literature aloud in your sessions. It can help you discharge about what you are reading.
I am excited about reading more and more of the literature in my sessions: reading from the many specialized journals, from Present Time, from the books, and so on.
Steve Brown
Denver, Colorado, USA
1 A book of poems by Harvey Jackins
2 Rational Island Publishers sells a number of scrolls with inspiring quotes (both RC and non-RC) on
them.
3 The RC journal for exchange of information and ideas about health
4 Contradiction to distress