It is not a discussion; the aim is to support the person in the client role to work through their own issues in a mainly self-directed way.
[1][2] Jackins founded the Re-evaluation Counseling (RC) Communities, with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States.
Like other offshoots of Dianetics such as Scientology and the Landmark Forum, Re-evaluation Counseling has features of a cult and an authoritarian leadership structure that actively suppresses dissent and critique.
The main activity in co-counselling involves participants arranging to meet regularly in pairs to give each other peer-to-peer counselling, in turn taking the role of counsellor and client, with equal amounts of time allocated to each.
Such cathartic discharge includes crying, warm perspiration, trembling, yawning, laughing and relaxed, non-repetitive talking.
In day-to-day life, these "discharging" actions may be limited by social norms, such as, for example, taboos around crying, which are widespread in many cultures.
But participants are strongly encouraged and supported to counsel through these feelings, often leading to profound changes in their perspectives and abilities around closeness.
In the beginning, this was because Re-evaluation Counseling decided not to draw on any discipline of psychotherapy for its theory and practice,[4] although RC did incorporate some ideas from psycho-analysis such as "unconscious promptings" which Jackins adapted and relabeled "restimulation".
[5] Others consider that co-counselling is psychotherapeutic, in that it enables change or therapy to take place in the psyche, soul affect or being of an individual.
The structure of RC is one of clearly defined leadership, to encourage clarity in the difficult struggles many people have to achieve breakthroughs against their distresses.
This is one reason why many consider a well-organised community of co-counsellors with clear rules to be essential in the successful practise of co-counselling.
Re-evaluation Counseling places a high importance on the need to understand and adhere to a comprehensive theory about the nature of the universe and of human beings (known in general as the "Benign Reality"), the best ways of assisting the discharge process and of pro-liberation attitudes in co-counselling.
The main aim is to provide a safe, stable and supportive atmosphere within which people can client skillfully and also lead "re-emergent lives" where they are not dependent in a therapeutic sense, but instead become more energetic and effective (a state known as "zestfulness" in RC).
[9] In turn, Heron and many of his supporters claimed that RC was authoritarian and cult-like, and later, that Jackins engaged in sexual abuse of clients.
RC supporters parried that CCI fostered a sexually-liberal atmosphere that blurred the boundaries of co-counselling and relationships.