A Class on “The Co-Counseling Relationship”
An RC class was held in November in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. The topic was “The Co-Counseling Relationship” (Topic 8 in the Fundamentals Teaching Guide and Class Outline for Pioneer RC Communities, Part I). I emphasized the efficacy of weekly and longer sessions if we want to discharge hurtful experiences and distress patterns so that we can re-emerge.
The class appreciated that close relationships with our Co-Counselors and showing caring are important contradictions [to distress] and also that RC Community safety is compromised when we add other relationships—such as social, business, or romantic ones—unless such relationships existed before we joined RC.
We pondered this quote by Harvey Jackins (on page 48 of the Fundamentals Teaching Guide):
Two Co-Counselors, as they begin to Co-Counsel, are rather in the position of two avalanche victims lying nearly buried in the rubble left by many disasters. Each has only partial vision with one bruised eye and freedom to move only one finger slightly as it protrudes from the rubble. Each is helpless by himself or herself.
Yet turning this slight beginning ability to . . . lifting a rock off the other person, each can aid in freeing the other and each will find his or her abilities accelerating as hand, wrist, arms, and so on, are helped to emerge.
We concluded the class by reading “The Counseling Relationship,” from a talk by Tim Jackins to a group of young people (on page 49 of the Fundamentals Teaching Guide).
Ondo, Nigeria
(Present Time 191, April 2018)