The Reality Agreement
The approach to (or technique of) counseling that we have called the “Reality Agreement” makes it possible for the time being spent in session to be almost totally contradictory to the client’s distress pattern and almost completely lacking in any “rehearsal” of it.
In this kind of counseling the client and the counselor reach a binding agreement with each other. The two formally agree to not allow the irrational, patterned pseudo-reality to intrude into their communication or their attentions and agree that, if it does intrude, it will be rejected and their attentions will be returned to actual reality.
(The counselor first seeks and secures the client’s agreement that the actual reality of the universe is completely distinct from the pseudo-reality interpretation of the universe that has been presented to us and continues to be presented to us by misinformation, by the operations of oppression, by the client’s patterns, by other people’s patterns, and by the oppressive societies in which we live.) . . .
With this agreement secured, the counselor proceeds to ask some very simple questions that the client has agreed he or she will answer only from the position of the actual reality of the universe and the actual reality of himself or herself. . . .
A beginning question might be, “How good are you?” The profundity of the client realizing that he or she is completely good, and the efficiency of the discharge process in converting any distress that would try to oppose or interfere with that realization, is very impressive and satisfying.
From page 69 of The List
(Present Time 193, October 2018)