How I was Disempowered by Re-evaluation Counseling
I've been intending to write this article for some time. It describes my experience within Re-evaluation Counseling as viewed with the benefit of hindsight, now that I am no longer connected with the organization.
From being an established member of RC...
I first learnt co-counseling through *RC* in 1993 and practiced it for about three years until earlier this year. I have learnt a lot about myself and enjoyed the people that I got to know in my immediate *community*. However, I have also been hurt in ways which are still becoming clear to me and I am glad to be free of the organization, as will become clear in the rest of this article.
Note: I will highlight *RC* jargon words and phrases with asterisks ** because I think an awareness of the power of these words and phrases in itself reveals a lot about the power structures at work here. For example, *RC* members are encouraged to think about *community* and to develop emotional attachments to the community, but to forego friendship. The result is that fear of losing *community*, of becoming an outcast, holds them in place and becomes a control. You cannot become an outcast to a friend.
...to discovering the truth...
I discovered the truth about the inherent corruption of the RC organization with the aid of David Elfanbaum's letter and the accompanying article by Matthew Lyons which I received via email on the 13 March 1996. This is the article that can now be found on the Liberate RC! Web site.
I really appreciate David's initiative in contacting people with this article which expressed his own concerns so well - we have a right to know what's happening and judge for ourselves on such matters. I have been amazed to find this action criticized by some. I have circulated the article to people that I know well in my local area because I care about them.
The strange thing about receiving the Matthew Lyons article was that it was at one and the same time shocking and yet not surprising. It was like seeing a jigsaw suddenly fall into place to form a clear and recognizable picture after hours of staring at apparently unconnected pieces of sky. I realized that I had intuited a fundamental flaw in the organization some time before, but had not been able to form a clear enough picture of what was wrong to identify that it was RC which was making me uncomfortable, not something in myself. This intuition had made me feel extremely unhappy and discomforted, which ironically led me to seek more co-counseling!
I have to say that the least powerful aspect of the article for me was the allegations of sexual abuse. I have no way of verifying these allegations and I'm aware of the way in which allegations of sexual misconduct are used to hurt and disempower men. I have been accused of child abuse myself purely for this reason (to hurt and disempower me) and I know many men have similar experiences. If the allegations against *Harvey* are true, they are very serious indeed; but I have no way of knowing for sure whether they are true from my position here in England. It is significant that none has taken the matter to court.
By the way, yes, I did intentionally highlight *Harvey* to mean it is RC jargon - have you noticed how Harvey Jackins is referred to by first name only in RC circles - as if to say "there is only the one true Harvey, so we don't need a surname". Other people who go by their first names only are: Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Elvis... Think about it!
The part of the article that rang true for me, and indeed rang many warning bells too, was the part that dealt with abuse of power. I realized that it was this that had led to my feeling of discomfort. Suddenly I knew what had been happening and could look back at apparently minor incidents and see them as part of this problem. You see, what was happening was that I was experiencing a diluted form of the power control from local leaders. It usually took the form of "this is *RC theory* formed by the consensus of experienced co-counselors so it must be right" and "if you don't agree with it you haven't *worked* on it enough". I never did find out what this "consensus of experienced co-counselors" was, but from what I have heard since then about the way *world conferences* are organized, it is clear that this is a consensus of One.
With hindsight I can see that the local leaders were clearly instructed in this authoritarian way themselves and passed on the *theory* in the way that they received it without realizing the significance of the method of delivery. For example, theory was conveyed as *information*, with no room for opinion. I certainly see no reason to believe these people were anything but sincere themselves and they were unawarely supporting the power structure. Nevertheless, they were part of the problem. I know of a number of people who have left RC due to confrontations with local authority figures or who were kicked out for not conforming well enough.
It is interesting to note that the power control was at its strongest when presenting the "homosexuality is distress" *theory* which Harvey Jackins recently reintroduced into RC as agreed by this consensus. This *theory* claims that the only rational sexuality is heterosexuality and that homosexuality is *distress* that can be *discharged* through counseling. This is a bit like the attitude some decades back that homosexuality was a disease that could be cured (this cure often took the form of aversion therapy, even using electric shock treatment). Not surprisingly, this claim has caused much disgust and anger within RC, but since there is no forum for discussion and no genuine mechanism for challenging such bigotry, the only recourse is to leave. Many people have indeed left as a result of this claim.
...to running away FAST...
I decided that I could not bear to be associated with such an organization as RC as long as the abuse of power was a feature of the organization. I pondered the possibility of reforming the organization, but I did not ponder for long. Many people have already tried that and have wasted enormous emotional energy on trying to rescue that which is good about co-counseling. They have all failed. There was no reason to believe that I would fare any better and in any case I have many other priorities for my energies which are far more important. The best insight I had was that RC is not co-counseling and, furthermore, co-counseling is not in itself the important thing that I had gained. What I had gained was an emotional growth which I could have gained in any number of ways and it just happened that I had used RC as the medium for my growth.
When I realized that I had nothing to lose by leaving RC and nothing to gain by staying in it, my decision was clear and very, very simple. I quit. Immediately!
It is now my belief that reform of the RC organization is impossible. The whole structure is based around one person - Harvey Jackins, and will be taken over by his son, Tim Jackins. All the control and power is vested in these two men. I believe that the only way to deal with such a dictatorial structure is to knock it down. The difficulty is knowing how to reach out to those who have developed an emotional dependency on RC, as I did to some extent. Having said that, breaking the dependency was one of the best, growthful, things I have ever done...
...back to myself...
Once I had left RC, I then found, to my surprise, that I was feeling more and more powerful. True, kicking this corrupt organization into touch was itself a powerful act, as was encouraging others to do so, but that wasn't the whole story. As I thought more about it, I realized that what had happened was that I had reclaimed my own thinking.
You see, whilst I was part of RC, I gradually gave in to the idea that my thinking wasn't good enough. Early in my membership I used many non-RC sources of what I judged to be good ideas. Towards the end of the three years I had accepted the lie that only RC had the answers and therefore only RC literature could be a reference. I could not comment on any *material* that came up in a *session* without referring to *the literature*. The recurring theme in many articles and classes was "your thinking is *patterned* - you can't think clearly for yourself so don't try, just trust RC theory and counsel on it until you agree". The attack on my own thinking was a constant part of my co-counseling experience. The attitude is that thinking has to be based on RC theory to be even considered to be thinking. There is no room for feeling at all except as a *distress* to be *discharged*. I fell for all this nonsense for a while and hurt people as a result. I stopped really listening to people, but instead would fit their experiences into a standard *pattern*. Both co-counseling and normal conversation became exercises in *pattern* spotting. I would say things like, "well, RC theory says that x, y and z must have happened to you when you were young". I even devalued people's feelings by calling them *just patterns*!
Am I glad that I am out of that!
...and the future
I have doubts about the usefulness of co-counseling. I certainly benefited in some ways in the short term and there may be some very useful lessons to be learnt from that. I think the most powerful aspects of my co-counseling experience were: learning to express and feel my emotions; validation of myself as I am, especially my pride in being a man. Balanced against this is the damaging side of the experience in the long term. I think the most harmful was the loss of my freedom of thought and the cultish nature of the organization.
After I left RC, I spent a little time researching the background of RC, starting with the Liberate RC! Website mentioned above. The most worrying thing I found was the strong connection between RC and Dianetics, later to evolve into the Church of Scientology. The original name of Jackins' organization, now known as "Personal Counselors" was "The Dianetics Institute of Seattle" and was formed after Jackins split from Hubbard after being a senior member of the Dianetics organization. RC is in fact Dianetics in another guise. During my research I came across an article on Scientology called The Total Freedom Trap by Jon Atack, which was very revealing. The following quote comes from that article:
In a 1909 lecture, Freud explained a method for uncovering traumatic memories. Patients were asked to recall earlier and earlier life incidents on a "chain" until the emotional "charge" was released. Hubbard not only took the technique, he even retained several of the expressions used by the translator of these lectures. Freud had abandoned the technique, because it was laborious and completely failed to uncover key repressions. In fact, after sometimes providing initial relief, Dianetics all too often deteriorates into the dangerous conviction that entirely imaginary incidents are literal truth.
Do you recognize that? Freud's experiment is in fact the basis of RC! The final comment links us with the current concern about psychotherapy, when misused, creating false memories.
The Liberate RC! website contains several very powerful articles exploring the nature of RC and its background. Anyone interested in co-counseling or in RC should read them, particularly the article The Roots of Authoritarianism by Lundy Bancroft. I have also got a copy of Group Influence and the Psychology of Cultism within Re-evaluation Counseling: A Critique by Dennis Tourish and Pauline Irving but I haven't been able to track down the original article.
I also have concerns about the spirituality claims made of co-counseling. I converted the article "Original theory of co-counseling & the paradigm shift" by John Heron (founder of Co-Counseling International) into Web format so that it could be published on the co-counseling website.
In this article, great claims are made for the "spiritual" nature of co-counseling. In my reading of this article it would appear that the word "spiritual" is used to mean quasi-religious. The "paradigm shift" referred to here is a shift from counseling as a healing process to counseling as a quasi-religious experience. For example:
Transmutation processes are already at work in co-counseling. The intense spiritual activity of giving attention through the gaze, is a deep interpersonal meditation or spiritual practice, which is subtly transmutative of distress for both the giver and the receiver. The symbolism of collective ritual, as in opening and closing circles for celebration, moving, singing, simple enactments (passing round a flower or key with a declaration), creates a subtle shift of consciousness with an energetic field that is transmutative.
It always worries me when people attribute intense human experiences to spiritual forces. Clearly this is a personal view being expressed, not a policy, but nevertheless it worries me.
My conclusion then is to be deeply suspicious of co-counseling. I feel that my knowledge of counseling has been deeply undermined by the environment in which I learnt it, so that although I agree with some of the principles, I find it difficult to trust my judgement. This is because my judgement has been manipulated. I know people who are counselors or therapists in the "real world" and do great work. A characteristic of their work is that it is very practical, functional and down-to-earth. I think this must be the basis of any form of therapy.
Co-counseling may still have its uses. I think it will be some time before I have sorted out my own thinking enough to be able to recognize those uses and to be able to trust them. In the meantime, I will have nothing to do with any form of counseling.
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