Co-counselling provides tools for people learning how to help themselves and others change, in order to lead more satisfying lives.
The goal of therapy is for the person to spend more time operating in the flexible, caring, problem solving mode and less in a Patterned mode—with fewer negative feelings which are inappropriate in kind, intensity or duration; with fewer rigidly compulsive thoughts and behaviours. This means disrupting Patterns, not just escaping them temporarily. To achieve this in counselling sessions the tactical aim is for the client to discharge as much as possible.
People may be motivated to use co-counselling in different ways: for emotional first aid in a crisis; for problem solving in difficult areas of their lives; to change their personalities; to be empowered to change the world--or to facilitate transcendence. However restricted the therapeutic goals of an individual are, it would always be a goal to transmit the basic theory concerning distress, patterns and discharge to that person, so that they could apply it to their life, not just in counselling sessions. Similarly, the skills used in therapeutic sessions not only form a vehicle to reach the person's immediate change goals, but learning the skills is seen as a goal in itself, since they are potentially tools for use in the world.
Using these tools, individuals can:
In the co-counselling reciprocal relationship, partners experience each other as client and as counsellor. The experience of the therapist-as-client adds extra dimensions to the person of the therapist. Partners-as-clients are vulnerable, struggling, human beings in need of assistance in getting rid of distresses, however successful their lives appear.
In addition, clients will celebrate self and others, discharge a variety of emotions, demonstrate emotional healing, and show changes in their lives.
The impact of this on the therapeutic relationship is threefold:
Two related issues are the specific contract covering the counsellor role, and the skills and qualities found in an experienced co-counsellor. There is a minimum contract in which the counsellor aims to offer unconditional acceptance, by communicating a high level of supportive attention to the client and by refraining from giving: negative judgements of the client; interpretations of client's material; advice on the client's problems.
The counsellor also has responsibility for time keeping, and for assisting the client to return to a distress-free state at the end of his/her counselling session. An individual who cannot keep the contract is regarded as unsuitable for reciprocal pairs work and screening with this in mind is recommended in introductory classes.
Within CCI clients decide on the counsellor intervention contract they want. The first possibility is the "minimum" contract, described above, where no counsellor interventions are made. This is known as a 'free attention' contract. A person's free attention being all the attention they have available which is not compulsorily distracted by events outside or by distress. Such a contract is likely to be used when the client is an experienced co-counsellor, working with a less experienced partner. In this case clients will act on technique suggestions they make to themselves.
The second possibility is a 'normal' contract. Here the counsellor makes interventions when the client is having difficulties doing so. In the third possibility, an 'intensive' contract, the counsellor picks up every distress or discharge cue, and intervenes to facilitate more discharge. An intensive contract is used when the client is working on chronic Patterns; i.e. those Patterns which are continuously activated, examples being negative self-concepts such as "I'm not worth loving" and "I don't deserve to have what I want." Such a contract assumes the counsellor is highly skilled in offering interventions.
For all contracts, the more continuously a counsellor can give supportive attention, undistracted by their own restimulated distress, the more effectively they provide present safety. The skilled counsellor can maintain a very high level of attention on the client, will notice when their own attention is distracted, and will then refocus on the client.
If the client wants interventions the counsellor makes them on the basis of observing what is going on for the client, verbally and bodily, and offering suggestions which facilitate Discharge and break Patterns. Such interventions come from the recognised body of techniques discussed in the next section.
Typical changes occur as people progress as co-counsellors. Working with a variety of partners results in exposure to a wide range of human distresses, and the experiential learning that intensive emotional expression does not equate with being bad, mad, or out of control; contrary to the cultural stereotype. Analogously, seeing women expressing anger and men crying, serves to disrupt deep rooted assumptions concerning gender differences.
Thus, the experienced co-counsellor is accepting of a wide range of client behaviour, and trusts the potential for emotional healing in human beings. In line with this, Jackins [1983, p. 31] lists the following counsellor attitudes as facilitative of clients working successfully: approval, delight, respect, confidence for them, relaxed high expectations, love.
The person of the therapist, as represented by an experienced co- counsellor, can be summarised using the criteria considered desirable in a teacher of co-counselling [Heron, 1978, p. 1].
"He/she is emotionally expressive, discharges readily in all modes, is aware of and working on own chronic Patterns. He/she can offer full attention, communicate unconditional acceptance to others, is continually looking for and appreciating the person behind the Patterns. He/she is sensitive to the differences between distressed emotionality and discharge; can act to facilitate discharge, and interrupt destructive behavioural Patterns in others. He/she has a strong sense of own self-worth and can act powerfully in the world."
The co-counselling therapeutic style has a number of important strands:
A focus on catharsis. Co-counselling assumes that all types of clients will benefit from discharging distress and breaking Patterns, and these assumptions apply to all personalities and types of problems.
Reciprocal therapeutic relationship. Co-counsellors typically work as reciprocal pairs with a clear contract on permitted behaviours. Where people have one-way therapy, because they are too distressed to fulfil the counsellor role, there is encouragement for them to move to pairs work as soon as possible; firstly in addition to one-way therapy, and after suitable progress to exclusively reciprocal pairs.
Working in reciprocal pairs means that participants experience each other as distressed human beings in the client role and as flexible skilled human beings in the counsellor role. This direct modelling of the theory and practice supplies both genuineness and empathy to the relationship, without these having to be learned as specific counsellor skills.
The relationship is defined by a contract, which specifies the roles of counsellor and client, and is kept distinct from any personal relationship that exists outside of sessions. Any negative personal interaction between the partners in a counselling session is regarded as restimulation from past experience and material for discharge.
What are known as transference phenomena in other therapies are the subject of special co-counselling routines. In these, the client explores who their counsellor reminds them of; what about the person triggers the reminders; and then separates the person of their counsellor from the positive or negative reminders.
Explicit teaching of theory and practice. Co-counselling validates clients' ability to think for themselves, using an explicit contract and the teaching of theory and techniques, to maximise client co-operation. People usually start co-counselling by attending classes in theory and practice; and there is encouragement to engage in ongoing study. In one-way use of co-counselling techniques the teaching will be interwoven into sessions rather than given in separate classes.
No interpretation or advice. Co-counselling assumes that clients are the experts on their own lives; they will generate their own meaningful interpretations and make their own best decisions, after freeing their flexible intelligence to operate in those areas of their experience previously locked up by distress. Therefore counsellors do not offer interpretations or advice.
Working from strengths. This is crucial to the relationship style and involves techniques as follows:
Deliberate use of Balance of Attention. The major interventions by the counsellor aim to set up the conditions for Discharge. These require the client to re-experience the negative feelings from previous upsetting events, while part of their awareness is focussed outside the distress, via and appreciation of present safety. When attention on distress is balanced by awareness of present safety, discharge occurs spontaneously—hence the term Balance of Attention. Present safety means there is no need for defensive negative feelings responses. So discharge represents the inbuilt human re-set to positive feelings. A split of attention of this balanced kind seems to be a basic feature of successful personal change in all therapies. Thus, Holden discusses the idea as a necessary condition for primalling [Holden, 1977], and the psychoanalytically orientated therapist Paul Dewald also describes the same conditions as necessary for client change. [Goldfield, 1980, p. 274].
Explicit behavioural and emotional goals. Clients are encouraged to set goals for change in their lives. Work done against Patterns in sessions is used to provide the client with tools to combat the Patterns in their lives between counselling sessions.