Your Healing Thoughts...
Re-Evaluation Co-Counselling One of the most useful things I have done to recover from the hurts of loosing my birth mother is a form of counselling called Re-Evaluation Co-Counselling also known as RC. The basic technique is good listening with encouragement to express whatever feeling come up for the person who is talking. It is most often done in pairs where one person listens while the other one talks and then you swap round. This makes it easier to listen well to a person because you know that will be getting your turn soon. The theory behind Re-Evaluation Co-Counselling (RC) is that humans are born completely good with tremendous intelligence, lovingness and joy for living. The theory assumes that it is natural for us to have good relations with all other humans, to think well and to enjoy life. These qualities can become blocked by traumatic experiences which start early in our lives. Distressing experiences wouldn't be a problem in themselves if we were able to recover from them as they happened by laughing, crying, trembling and shouting but these forms of expression are only allowed in moderation if at all. When young children hurt themselves the first thing they will do is find a sympathetic adult and cry, if they aren't distracted they might cry for quite a long time and then suddenly they are finished and eager to return to their playing. This is the natural healing process of humans and it works for emotional distresses as well. Unfortunately in this culture we learn very early on that it's not okay to cry. When we cried as babies/children the adults around became distressed and tried to distract us and if that didn't work they would find another way to get us to stop. How many times were you told as a child that 'big boys/girls don't cry'? We also learn from very young that it's not okay to be angry. When young children are frustrated by something, like they want to go outside and play and their parents want them to got to bed they will get angry and might even have a tantrum as their way of expressing their frustration at not being able to do what they want. If they were allowed to express the anger they felt with their parents understanding their need to do this (rather than disapproving of them) then after a time of shouting and jumping around they would probably feel fine and able to go bed happily. But generally adults don't like children getting angry and will often try and stop them from expressing it. If I got angry when I was a child my father would shout at me and sometimes even hit me. Then I would be too busy being frightened to be angry! So I learnt that crying and shouting weren't okay and by the time I was a teenager I could only cry when I was drunk and never expressed my anger. I remember when I was 17 being furious with my boyfriend about something and I just couldn't speak, in the end he got me a pen and paper so that I could write it down which I did swear words and all! I was literally too frightened to show my anger in an angry way. These days I'm happy to say that I can raise my voice without becoming terrified! The basic technique of Re-Evaluation Co-Counselling is listening to the other person with complete delight, seeing beyond any difficulties and patterns they might have to the wonderful powerful person that they are. This often provides enough safety for old feelings to come up while the person is talking. If the person is unable to feel anything (and in a society that doesn't approve of emotional expression it is easy to become numb to our feelings) there are various techniques that can be used to assist the person to feel. Let me give a small example. Maybe someone is telling you that they are very sad at the moment but they don't sound it and certainly don't feel like crying. You might notice that they are scratching their face while they are telling you about how sad they are, sometimes just getting a person to stop scratching will be enough for them to feel their sadness more. Each individual is different and different things work for different people. Co-Counselling is normally taught in classes so that you can learn some basic techniques which then can be adapted to suit the particular person you are counselling with. One of the most fundamental aspects of Re-Evaluation Co-Counselling theory is the idea that feelings of distress from the past can be triggered by situations happening in the present. My favourite example from my own life is when I was about 20 a dog was jumping up at me and my boyfriend as we were walking along the street, my boyfriend shouted at the dog to go away and I burst into tears. Him shouting was enough to trigger the fear and upset I felt when my dad was shouting at me when I was a child, it was as if I was 5 again. It is the same when relationships break up sometimes people feel so bad they think they will never get over it, that their life won't be worth living without this person. Part of what is going on here is that the distress we felt when we were abandoned by our mothers/fathers when we were young is being triggered. So not only are we feeling the loss of our partner we are also feeling the loss of our mother. When I say abandoned I don't just mean it literally as with adopted children who physically loose their mothers or children whose mothers die but all those times we felt rejected because our mothers were too busy to be with us, or were angry with us, or went on holiday without us. When these things happen to young children they can feel as if they have been abandoned even if it is only temporary. I particularly like this aspect of Co-Counselling because it makes me realise that I am not a victim to the circumstances of my life. That if I go back and heal the traumas of my childhood I will be more able to deal with the situations in my life now without being overwhelmed by painful feelings from the past. Unexpressed emotional distress leads to negative patterns of behaviour or feelings about ourselves. If we haven't healed from the pain of being abandoned as young children it is quite likely that we will have particular patterns of behaviour, one of mine is I find it hard to believe that my friends really like me. Another is that I can be very self-critical. I feel that I have to be good in order to be acceptable. These feelings come up for me much less often than they used to and although I can still be self-critical generally I am much more accepting of myself and am able to love myself much more often than in the past. For me Co-Counselling has been about learning how to express my emotions. Through having regular co-counselling sessions I have been able to express emotions about many of the painful things that happened to me when I was a child and one of these was being abandoned by my mother. Because of this I am more alive, more relaxed, better able to think about and care for myself, better at forming close, meaningful relationships with people than I used to be. I am less frightened, more assertive, more curious, more creative, happier and more able to get on with all sorts of people. Although I have been talking from the perspective of an adoptee I think all members of the adoption triad would benefit by being listened to by someone sincerely interested, who will remain relaxed in the face of our tensions and who understands how the process of emotional healing operates. Re-evaluation Counselling is practised in ninety-two countries. If you live near an established group of counsellors then you will be able to join introductory classes, monthly support groups and workshops (usually held at the weekend). If there is no organised Co-Counselling near where you live but there are people who have learned the basics you might be able to find counsellors who are willing to teach you on an individual basis. If there is no one near you whose has learnt Co-Counselling you can still start yourself by reading some of the literature and getting a friend or someone from your family to trade listening time with you - many people all over the world have begun Co-Counselling in this way. For more information and to find out to find out if any Co-Counselling is happening near you visit www.rc.org Contribute your healing thoughts previous page Home