A Letter to Prospective Co-Counselors
The following is a letter I wrote to three friends who live in the same house together in my neighborhood. I wrote it on a paper card that I had made and drawn pictures on. On the back of the card I wrote some reasons why I liked each of these people. (I think they would all be great Co-Counselors.) I liked applying my mind to inviting them in a warm and accessible way to a Co-Counseling class that I am going to assistant-teach.
Dear __________,
There’s this thing I want to tell you about. It’s called Co-Counseling. It’s a kind of counseling that people are doing in ninety-five countries around the world and that started in Seattle over fifty years ago.
How it works: People go to each other’s houses to “trade counseling time.” The primary technique is listening (there are others, too). If we were Co-Counselors, I would counsel you for perhaps a half hour and then you would counsel me for the same amount of time.
One of my favorite things about Co-Counseling is that we connect the dots between the way people are individually hurt and the systematic oppression within society (racism, sexism, young people’s oppression, and so on). Whether you’re targeted by a particular oppression or conditioned to target others, it is possible to heal from it and have your life go the way you want it to.
People learn the basic skills of Co-Counseling by attending a sixteen-week fundamentals class. Fundamentals classes happen about once a year here in Bellingham, and we’re pulling together people for a class now.
This is an invitation to learn more. I’d love to take an hour to tell you about Co-Counseling—over a meal, on a walk, or at one of our houses. If you’re not interested, then this is simply an invitation to catch up.* If you've got the time, let me know when!
Jacob Rosenblum
Bellingham, Washington, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail
discussion list for leaders of young adults
* “Catch up” means find out what’s been happening in each other’s lives.