Acsent m e :No. 88 (Vol, 24 - Re-evaluation Counseling

It is provided in the essence of things that from any 

fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth 

something to make a greater struggle necessary; : 

, 

—Watt Whitman 

Acsent m e :No. 88 (Vol, 24 

......._ - - • 

1 ,/

Hello, fellow re-emergers. Here's the July issue of Present Time. You continue to please me and 

each other with the growing numbers of reports, articles, and poems which you find time in your 

busy lives to write and send. The variety and effect of the things you think and do are impressive. 

We've had a short, busy spring here at Rational Island Publishers and the summer seems likely to 

be the same. Most of us have spent part of the last week at the Northwest USA Teachers' and Leaders' 

Workshop, which Harvey led. It's been fun to come home inspired and do the last minute bits to get 

Present Time ready for the printer. 

Our expected deadline for the October issue is September 10. Please get your writing and your 

workshop announcements and your address changes to us by then, at the latest! 

CONTENTS 

Articles About Counseling-3-30 

Make Room For Us in RC, L—, 3-5 

General Agreements to Guide a Future Society? Harvey Jac kins, 6-8 

Refusing to Yield on Principles, Pressured or Not, M—, 9-13 

Getting Organized For Change, Kathy Miller, 14-15 

Deliberately Stepping Out of Habits of Isolation, Sabra Dow, 17-18 

The Concrete Work of Eliminating Your Racism, Jennifer Wexler, 26- 

28 

One of the Cores of Male Oppression, Steve West, 29-30 

Counseling Practice-31-38 

Counseling By Mail, *Heloise," 31-32 

What Does It Mean To Be A "World Changer'? Dorothy Stoneman, 

35-36 

Appreciating Present Time-39 

Speculating About What COMPLETELY Rational Sexuality Would Be 

Like For Humans, Harvey lackins, 40-41 

Liberation-42-65 

Leading Is Justa Job You Loam How to Do, Dan Nickerson, 43-51 

Draft Policy Statement on Fat People's Liberation, 54-55 

Communicating on Paper, Catherine Itzin, 56-58 

From the M ail- 66- 78 

Yes, Pain Discharges Permanently, Linda Grayson Bernstein, 77 

Biennial Age Group Leaders-79 

Poems-20 

Information Coordinators-80-81 

Publications-82-85 

Videocassettes 86- 88 

Reference Persons for Organized Areas and Liberation Groups-89-93 

Convenors-93 

Teachers Outside of Organized Areas-93-99 

Contact-99-100 

Workshops-101-102 

APPRECIATIONS 

Ann Steele 

719 Second Avenue North 

Seattle, Washington 98109, USA 

Layout: Ann Steele 

Typesetting: Susan Hutchison, Valerie Jaworski, and Katie Kauffman 

Proofreading, shipping, and other help: Lynda Brockob, Susan Hutchison, 

Gordon Jackins, Harvey Jackins, Valerie Jaworski, Katie Kauffman, 

Lisa Kauffman, and Claudette Mouton 

Cover photo by Harvey Jac kins 

Drawings by: Francie Chew, Ronne Cosel, Megan Ernst, John Fehringer, 

Mark Hinton, Katie Kauffman, Sandra McDonald, George Partlow, 

Zig Rudevics, Anthony Guy Simmons, and Ann Steele 

Photography by: Lynn Sahaj, Gwen Stamp, Ann Steele, Anne Temple, 

Guo Yong, and unknown photographers 

PRESENT TIME (ISSN 0899-2490) is published quarterly In January, 

April, July, and October for $10.00 for a one-year subscription Inside the 

U.S. and $12.00 for a one-year subscription to other countries, including 

postage, by Rational Island Publishers, Inc., 719 Second Avenue North, 

Seattle, Washington 98109, USA. Second-class postage paid at Seattle, 

Washington. POSTMASTER: send address changes to PRESENT TIME, 

P.O. Box 2081, Main Office Station, Seattle, Washington 98111, USA. 

Copyright © 1992 by Rational Island Publishers, P.O. Box 2081, Main Office Station, Seattle, Washington 98111, USA 

$2.50 (USA), $3.00 (other countries)

„ ,p,p 

f1/11,4' ,, 

I went to the Raised Poor 

Workshop that Gwen Brown 

led, and i t changed my life, 

like the first women's liberation 

workshop I went to. All 

my life, my strengths, my feelings, 

my problems all make 

sense. It opened up a well of 

memories, feelings, my whole 

occluded childhood. 

I was a "bad kid” in school. 

It was a class thing. "Good 

kids" were middle- and upperclass. 

"Bad kids" were working-class 

and poor k ids . I t 

didn't matter what y ou ac - 

tually did; once you were categorized 

as a " b a d k id " o r 

"good kid," that's where you 

stayed. I was just bad no matter 

what I did. You could be a 

"good k i d " a n d d o " b a d " 

things sometimes, b u t that 

was completely different than 

being one of the bad kids. 

We lo o k e d w it h dis dain 

upon the "good kids," but we 

were so jealous, too. But we 

sure didn't want to be them— 

they s eemed lik e "goody - 

goodies," didn't know how to 

have fun, didn't, know how to 

do anything, didn't have common 

sense, worked too hard 

at s c hool, wer e prissy and 

timid. 8 

goodies—they u t 

had s o muc h 

t(clothes, h e cars, travel, college, 

fancy 

y 

houses, good grades), 

teachers liked them. They had 

parents 

g o 

who knew the teachers 

t and were involved in the 

school a ("visible" parents who 

looked l good). The "good kids" 

were l i n c lubs , o n s por ts 

t 

h 

e 

• M A K E ROOM FOR US IN RC! 

teams, the newspaper, yearbook, 

the "honor roll," they 

looked lik e they belonged 

there. We weren't part of any 

of this. We were invisible—and 

so were our parents (or whoever 

was raising us). 

It never even occurred t o 

me as an option for me to join 

any clubs, or sports teams, or 

any extracurricular activities. 

For one thing, l was working, 

and couldn't do anything extra 

anyway, but even if I could, I 

don't think I saw it as part of 

my world to do those things. 

None of my friends were there 

anyway. I w o u ld n ' t h a v e 

wanted to, but I would have 

liked the choice. 

We wer e "trac k ed" f r o m 

ninth grade on—college preparatory 

or not college. I took 

typing and home economics. 

Boys took "shop" ( I wanted 

"shop" but they wouldn't let 

girls take it), and other "vocational" 

courses. 

I didn't graduate from high 

school. There was a program 

in our school where you could 

work during the day i f y ou 

showed up at the school in the 

morning. S o for tenth and 

eleventh grades I had a fulltime 

job at a picture-framing 

shop. By the end of eleventh 

grade I was n't bothering t o 

show up at school at all, and 

no one seemed to notice or 

care. After that I'd just show 

up at the school to meet my 

friends or hang out or make 

trouble. 

3 

In RC I've always felt lik e 

I'm in with all these "good 

kids"—they did well in school, 

99% went t o c ollege, they 

have "professions" and "c areers." 

I've had jobs, not careers. 

The way the oppression 

has operated in RC is that the 

middle-class attitude and my 

internalized oppression s ee 

me as a "failure" and a "loser" 

who needs help from the "successful" 

people to get my life 

straight. T he assumption is 

that it's my fault that I have 

"loser" jobs (working-class 

jobs), money problems, and 

my life is difficult. It reminds 

me of seeing guidance counselors 

and social workers as a 

"tr oubled k i d " — a l l t h e s e 

s eemingly w e l l - m e a n i n g 

people, but you end up feeling 

like it's all your fault. I'm getting 

very foggy trying to explain 

this, but the part that is 

clear to me, is that when I'm 

with my non-RC friends (poor 

and working-class) I don't feel 

like it's my fault. With them I 

feel like we all have financial 

struggles, b u t y ou jus t deal 

with it and do the best you can 

and help each other. 

What's oppressive i n RC 

(and other middle-class environments) 

is feeling lik e the 

only one with money problems, 

so it must be my fault. 

Some thoughts about being 

a "bad girl." In addition to the 

stigma of being a "bad kid," 

there's the double stigma o f 

the s ex is m, when y ou'r e a 

"bad girl." This means you're 

continued...

continued... 

"loose," "easy," have a lot of 

sex. It doesn't matter what you 

actually do or don't do—if you 

are a "bad kid" a n d 

a people g i r assume l , that you must 

tsleep h earound, n too. 

I was a "hood" (hoodlum), 

or a hood's girl. We smoked, 

(we smoked in school), w e 

stole, we stole cars, crashed 

parties, hung out in a gang 

and did what we pleased. We 

did a lot of drugs, had wild 

parties, drove around a lot, 

hung out a lot, drank a lot, and 

counted on each other a lot. 

We saved each other's lives. 

We had motorcycles (one of 

my close friends killed himself 

in a motorcycle accident). We 

got in trouble a lot. 

So far, I don't find people in 

RC that were "bad kids"; I wish 

I could. I can't explain it, but I 

can trust someone that shares 

this background. Maybe because 

I know they were that 

outraged, for the same reasons 

as m e (class oppression), 

and they have figured 

out how to carry on and survive. 

There were some people 

at Gwen's workshop from this 

background, and I can't tell 

you how deeply it felt like 

going home. 

I have to say I'm very proud 

of being a "bad kid." We didn't 

do what we were "supposed 

to." We never gave in. We 

stood by each other; we were 

completely lo yal t o each 

other. W e kn ew t h at t h e 

school, the adults, and society 

were messed up and were not 

there to help us. We had a lot 

of fun. We had each other, and 

a lot of deep friendship. We 

did what we wanted, when we 

wanted. We were sexy. We did 

a lo t o f things mos t people 

don't ever get to do. We were 

brave (or "reckless," I'm not 

sure). We faced danger a lot 

and laughed in its face. We 

were "cool" and we k new it. 

We w ere super aware; w e 

didn't miss a trick. We enraged 

the adults and loved it. 

We didn't care about getting in 

trouble (a minor annoyance). 

We were "street wise"—we 

learned a lot about certain 

things that are very useful. I've 

always been a trouble-maker. 

I never thought in terms of a 

"career." I don't think that's a 

working-class concept. I' ve 

always just thought of getting 

a job. 

Do working-class people 

(especially working poor) 

have more jobs than middleclass 

people? I have worked at 

so many different jobs, starting 

at age eight: cutting grass, 

green-house work, formica 

factory, milking cows, picture 

framing, Woolworth's, picking 

apples, textile/garment factory, 

secretary, bookkeeper, 

office manager, selling Yellow 

Pages, selling i n a store, 

teaching music, teaching Hebrew, 

teaching folk-dancing, 

stripper, executive director, 

singing telegrams, cleaning 

houses, childcare center, babysitter, 

cleaning cars, waitress, 

groundskeeper, turkey 

farm, ap art m en t m ain t enance, 

fixing cars, c a m p 

counselor, artichoke farming, 

bus-girl. 

I have learned to pass very 

well in the middle-class world. 

4 

It has been a hard struggle, 

and it has done vicious and 

humiliating things to my selfimage. 

I think easily 50% of 

my attention has been spent 

on watching my language and 

everything l do and how I look 

to tr y and avoid humiliation 

and hide who I really am: my 

speech, c lothes , behaviors, 

attitudes, interests. 

I don't mean to defend my 

ignorance now, but there is a 

lot that I jus t don't know. I 

don't have the education, and 

I didn't have access to information 

that middle- and upper-class 

people seem t o 

have. So, I'll be with a group of 

counter-culture types (middle-class) 

or RCers (middleclass 

around here, anyway) 

and there's a lot that's said 

that I h ave n o id ea w hat 

they're talking about! l mean, I 

don't have a clue! So I have to 

dodge and cover this up to not 

"spoil the conversation," and 

I'm scared they'll find out I 

have no idea what they're talking 

about, and I can't wait to 

get away. For instance: politics, 

history, literature, the 

arts—just information about 

the world that everyone else 

seems t o k how , c o m e u p 

when I'm with these people. 

This is something that's very 

hard for me in RC. It makes 

me feel dumb, like a loser. 

With my friends, I can relax 

and be myself. Usually I know 

(and I 'm interested) in what 

we're talk ing about, and if I 

don't k now something I just 

say so and it's no big deal at 

all.

One of my strengths as a 

working-class woman is I'm 

not afraid to try just about anything—and 

I don't need to 

know how to do i t first. My 

attitude is "I'll figure it out as I 

go along." Consequently, my 

life has been full of as many 

new things as I can figure out 

to do, and my life has been full 

of mistakes. There's a big 

wonderful world out there, and 

coming from my background, 

I'm hungry for it all. I want it 

all. But I have a question about 

goal-setting. c a n ' t seem to 

use the goal charts in an organized 

way, yet I know I do 

set goals and achieve them. I 

wonder if it's the "I'll figure it 

out as I go along" viewpoint 

that makes i t hard to define 

beforehand the steps towards 

the goal. Or do you think it's 

just some distress in my way 

and I should try to force myself 

to use the charts? 

(I do know I have distress 

about actually assuming I'm 

going to be here at all tomorrow, 

let alone next month. I 

never ever thought I'd live to 

be my age—I feel blessed to 

be alive at all! Me, and my 

friends, all thought we'd be 

dead by twenty-five; some of 

us were.) 

l hope this letter doesn't 

sound like a sob story, but I 

am really so happy about 

Gwen's work and the raised 

poor liberation movement in 

RC. l look forward to workshops, 

support groups, lots of 

discharge and reclaiming o f 

pride (maybe "claiming" o f 

pride would be more accurate!). 

Since l got fired from the 

phone company for union organizing 

(two years) l have 

had a lot of trouble keeping a 

steady job. I'm working as a 

bookkeeper now, trying as 

hard as I can to be perfect in 

every way, to not lose the job. I 

feel extremely lucky to have 

the job. 

I have a boyfriend; I'm living 

with him and I'm wild about 

him. The idea of having a real, 

trusting relationship with a 

man is amazing. I discharge a 

lot on the incest with my fa- 

5 

ther, and the violent abortion 

when I was a girl. This also 

means I can have a life, and 

RC too. He comes from a similar 

background, so there's a 

lot that doesn't need explaining 

between us. It's the first 

time in my life that I can actually 

imagine a future for myself. 

l feel so lucky. 

I've b een having so m e 

health problems in this last 

year, and l haven't been able 

to take care of them since I 

have no insurance and n o 

money, but hopefully I'll have 

insurance starting in August. 

Lump in my breast, tumor on 

my pituitary gland, thyroid 

problem, a n d somet hing 

strange on my right side (arm, 

neck, hip). 

I'm fallen in love with country 

music, and know every 

word to every song playing on 

the radio in the last year and a 

half. The radio is my joy and 

consolation when I need comfort. 

I still dream of someday 

singing in public. 

L— 

USA

General Aglx!ements to Guide a Future Society. 

In spite of our preoccupation with our day-to-day survival in this collapsing society and in spite of the 

tendency to focus on accomplishing our re-emergence from distress, many RCers have indicated to me that they 

are very interested in speculating about what a non-oppressive society of the future will be like, not just in its 

philosophy but in its operation. 

They wonder if it is possible to stop the destruction of the environment fast enough. Is it possible to finally 

eliminate the senseless wars that are still persisting in some localities? Can we plan a decent society and 

describe it in a way that will inspire enthusiasm and hope among the disillusioned and confused? 

Speculating about such a future society has been for a long time one of my favorite musings. Possibly it's 

time to share this activity more widely and see what kind of tentative blueprints might grow out of our thinking 

after a few months of discussion. 

Below are some of the ideas that I can remember easily. What do you think of them? What do you object to? 

What further ideas immediately spring to your mind? 

—Harvey Jackins 

1. Nothing shall be used from the environment without taking complete responsibility to see that 

it is returned to the environment intact or reintroduced into an operating recovery cycle in ways that 

will not interfere with the operation of the forms of life involved. This includes air, water, mineral 

resources, the soil, and the harvesting of all forms of life including forests and sea life. 

2. The surface of the earth will be largely reserved for the support and livability of other forms of 

life. We will view ourselves as respectful guests and visitors as well as benign caretakers and 

supporters of the web of life around us. Human dwellings, human transportation routes and human 

manufacturing activities shall be in the main located underground, deeply enough not to interfere 

with the activities of other forms of life on the surface of the earth. 

3. All extinguished forms of life, whenever possible, shall be reconstituted through the application 

of genetic engineering. All presently surviving as well as reconstituted forms of life shall be deemed 

sacred and preserved. Forms of life harmful to, parasitic upon, or predatory toward human beings 

(smallpox virus, HIV virus, malarial parasites, etc.) shall be restricted, and removed from the general 

environment and kept only in carefully guarded containers in the most responsible laboratory 

conditions. Threatening kinds of mosquitoes, tse-tse flies, ticks, lice, etc. shall be genetically modified 

to prevent their harassing of humans or their filling their previous roles as vectors for the transmission 

of disease organisms. In all other possible ways humans shall be protected from assault by traditionally 

competing organisms or organisms predatory toward humans, but no strain of organism 

shall be wiped out, but, instead, viewed as an incomparably precious resource. 

4. A network of aquifers shall be tunneled several hundred feet under the surface of all existing 

continents and supplied with fresh water from the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica and made 

available for the intelligent support and modification of the climate and vegetation, and the growing 

of desirable crops. 

5. No human being shall be deemed in any way inferior to or superior to any other human being. 

6. No human being shall be required to conform to any standards simply for the sake of conformity. 

Cooperation shall be secured by communication, and enforcement shall never be used except 

as a temporary emergency measure. 

6

7. A minimum standard of living shall be established. No advances in the standard of living of 

other people shall take place until everyone is functioning at or above the minimum standard. 

This will include the support, special equipment and dedicated helpers necessary for functioning 

at this minimum standard of living for disabled, disadvantaged and uneducated people. 

Somewhat higher standards of living shall be established in not more than two levels slightly 

above the minimum standard. Barriers to the passage of individuals from the lower levels to the next 

higher levels shall be systematically ameliorated. Support will be given to individuals who wish to 

make the transition, but the higher standards must be met by the individuals, not lowered. 

Once the three levels of living standards have been set and are in operation, the standards may be 

improved, but only if the lower standards improve at the same rate as the higher. 

Special recognition and reward may be granted to outstanding individuals by the society as a 

whole, but only after full publicity and discussion and a vote by the entire population approving 

such recognition and reward. 

8. Over-population shall be prevented by requiring would-be parents to qualify and receive 

permission to conceive a child after having thoroughly reviewed and discharged the distresses of 

their own childhood, after having worked as helpers in the care and education of children under expert 

and respected supervision. Such parents must have qualified as "assistant parents," and must 

present a program of pledged contacts with other parents or qualified candidates for parenting to 

provide collective contact between the children and the families. This will be organized to eliminate 

the possibility of isolation or loneliness for the children. (Big families used to provide such resource 

but they will not be available in the small families of the future.) Such small families will be necessary 

for a stable population of humans which will not crowd, threaten, or extinguish the functioning of 

other species of life. 

9. Expansion of humanity through the universe shall become an accepted goal and be planned and 

organized for. The momentum of the growth in population already underway will be handled 

temporarily by the construction of great floating continents in the climactically favorable portions of 

the Pacific Ocean. More long-range projects will allow the terraforming of the moon, the modification 

of Mars and Venus to make them habitable, and the development of the technology for 

reaching and colonizing other star systems. 

10. All past knowledge shall be catalogued, stored and made available, using the rapidly advancing 

skills and capacity of computer technology, and all new information as it appears shall be 

automatically added to the existing store. Access to any and all such information shall be available to 

every human as the privilege and right of being human. There will be no "secret" knowledge. 

Creating and servicing this world-wide library will be a principal responsibility of the world government 

which will necesshrily come into being. 

11. Complete democracy will become possible by possession by each human of a television-like 

device where information about any subject, including public affairs, is available by keying a request 

into the instrument. Where decisions need to be made that affect groups of people, the affected 

groups will be notified of the information available on the subjects and will be urged to watch presentations 

of such information on their instrument. Once all points of view have been presented, 

debates and discussions will be scheduled, and when people are well-informed, a vote (which may 

be as large as world-wide in scope) will be taken by people inserting their unique personal keys into 

their unique personal instruments and voting yes or no on the crucial question. The results will be 

tabulated and appear on their screen almost immediately in the case of local issues but within a day 

or so even on world-wide issues. c o n t i n u e d . . . 

1,rsV 

7

continued... 

12. The surface of the earth will be largely reserved for the use of the forms of life which require 

sunlight, fresh air, etc. Part of these will be raised as crops, probably mostly in huge greenhouses 

(field-size) where insects and other forms of life which prey upon and attack the crops will be excluded 

rather than destroyed utterly with poisons, insecticides or herbicides. 

Underground railroads will come close to the surface at stations and otherwise travel at a much 

lower level. Thus gravity will furnish the large amount of energy necessary for acceleration to 

running speed and will furnish the braking force which will slow the trains down in preparation for 

a stop at the next station. The trains will be driven by compressed air blowing them at running 

speeds, and computer-managed fans will exhaust the air in front of and compress it behind the 

travelling train. Such trains will travel on a roadbed in the inner one of two concentric tubes which 

floats on water partially filling the outer tube. Passenger travel on such trains can be very, very fast 

and very comfortable, far more comfortable than present planes. (Full-scale plans and engineering 

drawings are already in existence for the construction of such future railroads.) 

13. Most present systems of levees on rivers will be replaced by the dredging of the river bottoms 

and the depositing of the rich soil on adjacent farmland so that the river can stay in its bed. 

14. The great store of nutritious chemicals accumulated at the bottom of many oceans (which 

fortuitously, through natural upwelling, provide the rich fisheries on the west coast of South 

America and other places) will be brought to the surface in many otherplaces as well so that our 

predation and use of sea life for our purposes will no longer threaten the supply of nutrients for other 

forms of life. The bringing of this rich bottom water to the surface where its combination with the 

sunlight will produce an enormous increase in the fertility of the oceans, can be handled by low 

pressure steam turbines that use the difference in the energy levels of the cold bottom water and the 

warm surface water to pump the bottom water to the surface. 

15. With the end of oppression and exploitation and the full development of computerized controls 

and robotics, it will become possible for people to "work with their hands" a maximum of a few 

hours a day to produce all the goods which we will find useful. In general, all people will participate 

in such "manual" labor to some degree. The children will be educated to expect that they will also 

perform technical tasks, challenging intellectual work and creative art. If people wish to work more 

in one field than another, permission will be granted by their fellow workers, because individual 

satisfactions will vary greatly in an atmosphere of freedom. 

Those are a few of my favorite proposals. What thoughts do you have to contribute? 

8

Refusing to Yield on Principles, Pressured or Not 

About three and a half years ago I was robbed 

and raped at gunpoint in my home. I have recently 

come to understand that it might be useful 

to other people to write about my experience, 

since it looks like it was different for me than it 

has been for other people. 

The man, a stranger (I'll call him John Doe for 

this article), approached me as I worked in my 

garage. (I was waiting for someone to arrive at 

my place.) He held a gun on me and asked for 

cash. For the first half of the event I thought this 

was simply an armed robbery. I tried to make 

some human contact with him, but he essentially 

"wasn't there." He was very scared and would 

push my face away when I tried to make eye contact. 

We went inside my home and my friend 

arrived shortly thereafter. We were both tied up 

while Mr. Doe searched for money, then we were 

both blindfolded. My friend was put into the hall 

closet and Mr. Doe and I went to my bedroom, 

where the rape occurred. At the start of the sexual 

assault, it wasn't clear to me whether he was 

being opportunistic or really intended to rape 

me. I changed my tone of voice and protested, 

and was hit, resulting in an incredible black eye. 

I think it was worth testing it up to that point but 

I considered that had I fought further (blindfolded 

and with my hands tied behind my back), 

I could have gotten really damaged. During the 

rape, Mr. Doe wanted to have a conversation, 

and, despite the bizarreness of the situation, I 

think we made some small actual connection 

that may have saved my life later on when he got 

more lost again. 

There were a couple of times when I thought 

that Mr. Doe could get preoccupied enough with 

his distress to shoot me. It did occur to me early 

in this adventure that I could die that very evening, 

but the thought did not seem useful, either 

to keep me thinking or to discharge, so I put it 

away for later. 

It was clear to me that the key issue was my 

survival. (I was not very worried about my 

friend. There was an odd kind of sexism operating. 

Mr. Doe addressed my friend as "sir" and 

apologized to him for tying him up and blindfolding 

him. He referred to me as "the bitch.") 

9 

After he left and we freed ourselves, it looked 

to me like the key issue was getting hold of the 

police, preserving evidence, etc., to try to stop 

Mr. Doe from hurting other women. I must say 

that the police were very good. With the first set 

of police officers, I got self-conscious about 

laughing at one point in my telling the story, and 

the cop was good in the way that he reassured 

me that whatever response I was having was 

appropriate. Later, as I was wondering out loud 

what I could have done differently to prevent the 

rape, the detective in charge of the investigation 

was very steadfast in asserting that the important 

thing was that I survived, given the small 

amount of force needed to do a large amount of 

damage with a gun. 

Since I had been hit so hard in the face, the 

police were concerned about possible neck injuries, 

so they called an ambulance. The ambulance 

attendant was a young man, who was so 

obviously worried about me and caring that I 

couldn't resent his calling me "sweetheart." On 

the way to the hospital, I asked him to hold my 

hand and let me cry, which he did. 

The Countys Sexual Assault Response Team 

protocols fell apart that evening, and by the time 

• the right nurse arrived three hours later, I was 

pretty annoyed. The Emergency Room staff was 

faced with some real emergencies that evening 

and gave up trying to phone my sister after one 

try, so she arrived at about the same time as the 

nurse. After that, however, things went okay. 

(Within a few days, I had talked with one of the 

members of the Board of Supervisors and various 

high-level hospital administrators and had 

them change the protocol so that no one would 

have to wait by themselves for the doctor's evidentiary 

exam.) 

I spent about half the next day at the police 

station and then the key issue became getting 

counseling. When I called L— to see if she could 

help with some one-way counseling, she took 

over the job of organizing teams of counselors 

for the first week or so, which was a tremendous 

help and sped up by at least a day massive counseling 

resource getting to me. The one-way time 

during the week and a half after the event was 

very helpful. c o n t i n u e d . . .

continued... 

What was useful for me in counseling on the 

incident right after it happened was to have two 

counselors lying down on either side of me, with 

me hanging on for dear life. I told the story again 

and again. Pretty uniformly, my counselors 

looked scared when they came in and reassured 

when they left. I think this was because it was 

clear that the experience did not get to me in any 

essential way. 

Which is not to say that I didn't discharge 

mightily. I did. I had never sweated so much. 

From the inside, it looked as if there was a thin 

layer of new hurt, but that most of what I was 

discharging on was very old. Even when the retelling 

of the story of the rape was what was letting 

the discharge come, it was clear to me that I 

was discharging lots of early grief, terror, powerlessness, 

and frustration. 

It is hard to know what it would have been 

like i f the members of my immediate family 

weren't also involved in Co-Counseling, It was 

useful for me that they were helping, rather than 

worrying about, the influx of counselors. And 

also it was good that they could discharge their 

own restimulation. 

(While I was with the police artist, I suggested 

that my sister and brother-in-law go have a minisession 

because they had not had a chance to discharge 

very much since they picked me up from 

the hospital the night before. My brother-in-law 

wanted to be there for me and so they didn't 

leave. A couple of hours later I was talking to 

another friend and Co-Counselor on the phone, 

who started crying, which let me start crying, 

which let my brother-in-law start crying. He 

could let go of his "stiff upper lip" at that point, 

and I could stop worrying about him, which was 

nice.) 

There was also enough resource around me so 

that we could decide together that the best thing 

for me and the family was for my other sister not 

to come and stay with us, but to provide reassurance 

and attention for her three-year-old daughter, 

who was aware that something was wrong. 

I have talked recently with Lenore Kenny 

about this again, since the subject of rape has 

been coming up more at the Women and Physical 

Power workshops that she leads. I guess the 

lo 

message is still quite pervasive that rape is so 

awful that a woman could reasonably feel that 

she would rather die. At the very least, it is 

supposed to totally devastate us. If we take seriously 

the proposition that the only new hurts we 

receive after adolescence are physical damage 

and the loss of a loved one, then we have to face 

the fact that being raped is not a new hurt. (In 

fact, I remember noticing during the act itself 

that physically it didn't feel any different from 

other times I had had sex without really wanting 

to, out of feeling obligated to a partner or whatever.) 

This is not to say that it can't be massively 

restimulating. I think the fear of rape is installed 

as part of sexism (as are blaming the woman for 

being raped, not taking rape seriously, and many 

other things about both violence and sexuality). I 

think that we need to see rapist patterns as patterns 

involving an unaware kind of touching 

that we need to be able to handle. 

I was very insistent on confidentiality about 

the incident, both with Co-Counselors and with 

friends, because I did not want to have to counsel 

people who were not in direct contact with me 

(and therefore could not see for themselves that I 

was really okay). So I told people myself in my 

own way and asked my counselors to counsel 

with each other about it. I think they actually did. 

They also had a meeting together for thinking 

and discharging, which I think was useful to 

them. 

Lenore has been describing what my experience 

looked like to her as counselor, which 

was that it looked like I treated the experience as 

a challenge to be faced. I didn't consciously think 

of it that way or decide to do it that way, but I 

think it comes close to what I actually did. I did 

not think of myself as a victim, and I did not lose 

my sense of humor (although in the interest of 

survival I did save my smart aleck and sarcastic 

remarks for my sessions rather than blurt out 

those first thoughts during my conversation with 

Mr. Doe). I did not stop thinking during the 

experience, and afterwards it was not useful in 

working on it to think of myself as a victim. In 

fact, the whole experience was oddly reassuring—knowing 

that I had built up enough resource 

over the years, and had decided often 

enough (when I remember) not to be restimulated, 

that this didn't "get" me.

The next major part of the story takes place 

three years later. A few months after my rape, 

Mr. Doe killed a young exchange student and 

was subsequently caught. This past spring, I refused 

to testify in the penalty phase of Mr. Doe's 

murder trial because to do so would have added 

weight to the prosecution's argument for the 

death penalty. 

I testified at the preliminary hearing in 1990. I 

knew that the prosecutor was eventually going 

to ask for the death penalty, but weighed my 

opposition to that possible end against the possibility 

of the rapist going free if I didn't testify. I 

attempted to persuade the Assistant District Attorney 

to accept a plea bargain of life without 

parole, but was told that if they accepted guilty 

pleas in all of their "good" death penalty cases 

then they would never have any death penalties 

in California. I didn't think that would be such a 

bad thing, but my view did not prevail. 

I was subpoenaed sometime in 1991 and assumed 

that I would be testifying in the rape case. 

It turned out that the murder trial was severed 

from the rape trials and tried first. (The rapes 

will not be prosecuted, since there is nothing 

worse that can be imposed on the defendant.) 

I found out at the beginning of March that I 

was only being called for the penalty phase of the 

murder trial, in order to increase the chances for 

the death penalty. By the time I was scheduled to 

testify, Mr. Doe had been convicted of murder. 

Because the jury fou*d "special circumstances," 

the least penalty available for him was life without 

possibility of parole. The prosecutor was 

introducing evidence of other crimes (other than 

the murder) in order to more effectively argue 

for the death penalty. I am opposed to the death 

penalty. 

I called a lawyer friend in San Jose, who talked 

to her criminal defense partner, who said that the 

prosecutor was unlikely to make me testify if it 

came right down to it. The prosecutor, however, 

was determined. I had a couple more conversations 

with the prosecutor, who by that time was 

running for election as a judge, where I argued 

that it was unethical of him to put me on the 

stand for the death penalty when he knew how 

strongly I oppose the death penalty. He in turn 

tried to persuade me to "do the right thing" by 

11 

assuring the that he was only fulfilling his obligation 

to the People of the State of California to 

present all of the facts to the jury. I might have 

had more sympathy for that position (although I 

still would not have testified) if I did not know 

that he would be arguing strenuously for the 

death penalty once he had presented his evidence. 

I was extremely busy in March and put off 

thinking about what I would do. A few days 

before I was scheduled to testify, I sat myself 

down in order to decide what to do and realized 

that what I needed to do was discharge so that I 

could think clearly. Because of the reactions of 

the people I had told about the situation, I realized 

that I needed a counselor who would not 

sympathize with my predicament. I remembered 

that Harvey had said that I could talk to him 

about this, so I got in touch with him. I discharged 

mightily, mostly tears, sweating, and 

shaking. Lots of it had to do with terror of being 

sent to jail. (The threat of being sent back to the 

orphanage was a major way my sisters and I 

were kept in line as children.) Harvey had lots of 

effective directions, but the most helpful was the 

comment, "Someone must have scared you 

badly for you not to have already thought of this 

as an organizing tool." The light went on and I at 

least had an idea of what to do. 

I did not know at that point whether, i f I 

testified, I would be allowed to tell the jury what 

I think about the death penalty. I started thinking 

out a statement that I would want to make to 

the jury. That afternoon a friend came over for 

lunch and she gave me the name and number of 

a defense attorney in my county, who gave me 

the names of some organizations to try calling 

the next day. 

My testimony got postponed, which gave me 

a week and a half to get organized. I wrote out 

my statement and used that to discharge in sessions 

and phone time. 

I got in touch with various organizations and 

started being public with my friends and coworkers 

about what had happened to me and 

what I would be doing. I wasn't totally clear until 

I actually got to court, whether I would be allowed 

to testify about my views on the death 

penalty, but the people whose legal sense I 

continued...

continued._ 

trusted the most said that they didn't think I 

would be able to, so I had to go into court prepared 

to go to jail if that was what the judge 

decided to do with me. I did not want to go to jail. 

It turns out that there is a law in California that 

prevents incarceration of victims of sexual assault 

for refusing to testify against their assailants. 

It was not a bad thing not to know this 

beforehand, since I had to discharge some fears I 

would not have had to face otherwise. 

Most of my friends advised me to do what I 

could, short of going to jail on behalf of someone 

who had hurt me. I could only ask them what 

good my ethics were if I only used them when it 

was easy. 

The lawyer I originally spoke to got me in 

touch with a San Jose lawyer. (It turns out that I 

knew him from Democratic Party work that I did 

when I lived there and he represented me pro 

bono.) He attempted to deal with the prosecutor, 

who insisted on bringing me into court. The 

night before my court appearance I got in touch 

with an editor at the Mercury News, the husband 

of a friend. I told him what I was going to 

do and confirmed that he also opposes the death 

penalty. He asked me if I was willing to have my 

name printed in the paper and have a photo. I 

said yes, and I asked that at least part of my 

statement would get into the article. 

My two sisters and three friends (ranging in 

age from thirty-seven to seventy) came with me 

to court. My lawyer told the judge that I would 

be willing to testify if I could tell the jury my 

thoughts about the penalty. The judge was clear 

and very firm that I would not be allowed to do 

so. So I got on the stand to tell the judge that I 

would not testify. The judge was quite hostile, 

which surprised me a bit. 

I had discharged enough that I was not restimulated 

by the hearing, so I was neither cowed nor 

MY STATEMENT 

lam speaking out today because I have been subpoenaed to testify in the penalty phase of the trial of John H. 

Doe, despite my opposition to the death penalty. Mr. Doe was recently convicted of the rape and murder of a 

young Japanese exchange student in San Jose. The only sentencing options are life without possibility of parole, 

or death. My testimony will probably increase the likelihood of a death sentence. Ido not want to contribute to 

that likelihood. 

12 

defiant, which I think are the two responses he, 

normally sees. He was also not about to give me 

a forum for my views on the death penalty, so he 

kept asking leading questions. After one particularly 

long and somewhat obnoxious question 

starting, "Is it your position that ...," I told him, 

"That's not the way I would have said it, but I 

think you have the gist." After that his questions 

at least were a little more respectful. 

I talked to the newspaper reporter immediately 

after the hearing and gave him my statement. 

He called later and asked again why I had 

refused to testify. I told him that the very cornerstone 

of my ethical system is that humans should 

not harm humans, which is the quote that appeared 

above the banner headline on the front 

page of the paper the next morning. It was a 

great article, and it led to a few TV appearances 

and radio interviews since this all happened in 

the weeks before Robert Alton Harris was executed 

in California. I also spoke at an anti-death 

penalty rally in San Francisco, which had pretty 

good local coverage. 

One neat thing was watching a call-in talk 

show on the death penalty and having a woman, 

whose name and voice I didn't recognize, call up 

from San Jose with the comment that she didn't 

believe in humans harming humans. 

That's it for the time being. The whole thing 

has been pretty cool. People have called and 

written quite a bit. Even people who disagree 

with me on the issue are appreciative of my 

standing up publicly for my beliefs. No one is 

surprised that I would do such a thing, which is 

quite validating in itself. Three people have told 

me that they changed their views on the death 

penalty because of what they read in the paper. I 

can only hope that there are more. The basic 

feeling for myself that I take away from both 

parts of this adventure is some deep reassurance 

that I really am all right.

Three years ago I was raped by Mr. Doe in my San Jose home. I had accepted the fact that I would have to 

testify in a rape trial because I believe that individuals need to be protected from Mr. Doe's violent behavior. We 

do not need to kill him to do that. 

Anyone who has really paid attention to very young children knows that people are not born bad. Until we 

as a society can figure out a way to repair what goes wrong with people that results in harmful behavior, I agree 

that we need to isolate people like Mr. Doe from the rest of society. But killing him will do no good. It will do 

harm, not only to him but to all of us. 

Taking a human life is wrong, whether it is carried out by a person acting outside the law or by the State. In 

addition, the death penalty is still imposed more frequently on African Americans than on whites. The death 

penalty is monstrous in and of itself, and is more monstrous in the way it is used against black men. It demeans 

all of us to participate or acquiesce in it. 

Recently I was watching a movie with my niece, who was five at the time. In the movie, Robin Hood swore to 

avenge his father's death. My niece turned to me and asked, "What's avenge?" I told her it was hurting someone 

back who had hurt you. She looked puzzled and uncertain. She said, "But that won't bring him back, will 

it?" 

Nothing will bring back the young woman who was murdered. The only purpose for the death penalty here 

really is revenge. But it makes no sense to try to heal a hurt by causing more hurt. In seeking revenge, we are 

only giving up part of our capacity to be human. 

M— 

San Leandro, California, LISA

Getting Organized For Change 

I have been talking in workshops lately about 

"welcoming" the collapse of society and about 

the commitment: one for all and all for one. While 

they are not the same thing, I see them as closely 

related. It appears to me that the only way 

through the collapsing society, in a human sense, 

is for people to build networks of people who 

can trust each other, pull for each other and work 

in unison toward a rational society. 

"Welcoming" the collapse of society means 

noticing what is happening and not running 

away from it or allowing ourselves to feel overwhelmed 

by it. Despite the fact that there is 

ample evidence all around us that society is not 

working well for more and more people, many 

owning- and middle-class people find it hard to 

acknowledge fully what is happening. They 

hope it is only a "temporary" bad time, that it 

won't affect them too much. They may think 

they can just move out of the city to the suburbs 

or country where it is safer. "Times have been 

bad before and gotten better again." We may 

totter back to a less harsh phase this time, but less 

harsh for whom? There are many people who 

have never benefited from the "less harsh" times. 

I think part of what makes it so hard to look at 

the collapsing society and do something constructive, 

is that we all see the signs of collapse 

and they terrify us. We don't want to look at the 

unknown. We are afraid of how the collapse has 

already impinged on our lives, either in our own 

economic losses or in the way crime and poverty 

are rising around us. We try to close it out of our 

minds because to look at it is scary. Some of us 

feel helpless in the face of our own economic 

struggles or because of our victimization by the 

society or by crime. The fear that makes us feel 

helpless or hopeless keeps us from taking creative 

steps to help ourselves or other people move 

through the collapse, with a minimum of damage, 

to a more rational society. 

I see parallels in this to our earlier decision in 

RC to take on our fears of nuclear war, which 

were immobilizing our creativity and action. 

With some thoughtful counseling, far more creative 

things began to happen in the nuclear disar- 

14 

- 

K 

mament movement. I think we have to face directly 

our fears of a collapsing society. 

a 

Unlike 

our stance toward nuclear war which t we did not 

want to happen, and toward which h we took the 

direction, "It won't happen because...," y (which 

let people discharge their fear and take action), 

we will welcome a change in society. 

M 

We do want 

the old system to "collapse" and be i replaced by a 

more human society. I think our direction l here is 

to "welcome" the collapse and transformation 

l 

of 

society. I have offered people directions like 

"Yeah it's happening, whee!" "Come e on, let's 

go!" or "It will happen because rI'm 

going to 

prime the pump." 

Some people have felt horrified at my suggesting 

this. They feel like I'm saying it's okay 

for people to get hurt in the collapse of society. 

As people start discharging on those feelings 

and fears, however, their thinking begins to 

loosen. There may be other ways to get at this but 

I do think we have to begin discharging directly 

on our fears of the collapsing society, not just talk 

about the fact that it is happening. 

I couple this work with a one for all and all for 

one commitment I wrote for last summer's 

women's workshop. I kept my women's support 

group of very experienced, long-time and wellconnected 

Co-Counselors in mind as I drafted 

the commitment. 

There were several key elements I thought 

were important in the commitment. First, we 

need to contradict the basic isolation that all of us 

seem to have acquired in the process of growing 

up, and not leave each other alone in the face of 

struggles. 

Second, while it would be useful to each of us 

to ask for the help we need, most of us have not 

gotten good at doing this. Whether or not someone 

can ask, we need to come to each other's aid. 

(It is also important that all of us learn to ask for 

exactly what we need and not wait to be rescued, 

or ask for more to be done in our behalf than is 

necessary.) 

Third, we need to expect others to take this

attitude toward ourselves and toward each m e n t . Yet each of us needs to take it regardless of 

other. I t won't fully work if only one person whether others can or not. Finally, being for each 

takes this attitude because it is a group commit- o t h e r cannot be a way of excluding others but 

must be an ever-inclusive circle. 

To my dearly beloved circle, 

as we enter this pact together, 

I promise each of you 

that you will never again face any struggle, 

internal or external, 

alone. 

At the first sign of trouble, 

asked or unasked, 

I will rally our individual and collective 

forces to come to your aid. 

I want to share some more ideas that don't follow 

the taken-for-granted assumptions of our capitalist 

system. Twill give two examples. 

In The Netherlands there's an institute for development 

of organisations. The workers (there are around 

twenty) give social and management trainings for big 

and small enterprises. Internally they challenge classism 

by disconnecting labor and income. The income 

of the workers is not fixed to position, working time, 

age, experience or diplomas, but related to their needs. 

Each individual judges of the amount of money required 

to fill his needs in the coming year and sends in 

the figure, without explanation or motivation. And 

then that's his income. Only if the total sum of incomes 

exceeds that part of the expected returns of the 

institute that is democratically decided to be set apart 

for incomes do the workers reconsider their claims. 

Once every few years each worker tells something 

about her financial life, but there's no discussion about 

the individual's judgments or her needs or desires. 

This has worked well for over fifteen years now. And 

there are more institutes and companies that organise 

in this way or similarly, in The Netherlands and 

abroad. 

Also in The Netherlands, there's a new way of 

organising production. Normally, tons of agricultural 

produce are destroyed daily, whenever the auction 

price sinks below some standard. The auctioneers 

throw it away to keep prices up. The farmer receives 

15 

I expect the same from each of you 

toward me 

and 

toward each other. 

And I expect each of us 

to learn to ask 

for the exact assistance we need. 

Together we will build a circle 

that includes the whole world. 

Advanced Ideas and Practices 

From The Netherlands 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA 

the "intervention price" that's about 5% of a normal 

price. 

The biodynamic farmers set up a different system 

twenty years ago. They ask a central trader how much 

of each crop is needed in each week of the coming 

year, for inland use and export. They get a good 

answer because the trader does the work, so is well 

informed and can calculate trends. Now each farmer 

considers the crops he wants to grow, that are suited 

for his soil, etc. and sends in a list of his contributions 

for specific times of the year. The annual farmers' 

conference balances this with the other contributions. 

The farmer remains free to grow more than is expectedly 

needed. 

This works well, even in the uncertain production 

that is inherent to agriculture. It is a great way to avoid 

enormous under- or over-production, and thus the 

immoderate price changes that cause of lot of uncertainty 

to the farmer with regard to her income. 

Of course societal patterns tend to distort initiatives 

like these, where classism and distrust get challenged. 

But on this meso-economic scale, even though 

I don't see people discharging, it works. In the example 

of better organised production the benefits are 

big and obvious. With the first example, some organisation 

have given up. Like the "one for all, all for one" 

policy it seems to take quite some re-evaluation. 

Jelle Schtittelndreier 

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Dear Harvey, 

A NEW IDEA JUST IN TIME 

Last week I had about a half hour of unplanned time before a regular monthly meeting with the Board 

of Directors of the organization where I work. (I'm the Executive Director.) I decided to use the time by 

reading through the April Present Time I'd just received that day. I turned quite serendipitously to your 

article "Don't Take It Personally." I immediately recognized that your insights helped me put together a 

few more pieces in the puzzle of life. I thought, "This is an important concept; I want to see how I can 

apply it in my life." Then I had to go to my meeting. Your piece was the only article that I had a chance 

to read. 

I walked into the room and found more than two dozen people there who usually don't attend this 

meeting. The staff that I work with had done an excellent job of organizing some past employees and 

volunteers to attend and talk about their concerns about the direction in which our organization was 

headed. The meeting wound up being a confrontation between some of the staff and the organization's 

Board of Directors, with me in the middle. I was subjected to some strong criticism and some very 

negative comments about how I had handled some recent problems. 

At first I was very defensive about what was going on, but I suddenly recalled your article and made 

a conscious decision to apply the concepts you discussed. I began to listen to what their concerns were, 

rather than to whom they were directed. The two people who spoke the most read from prepared notes. 

As they read, their voices became progressively more monotoned and withdrawn. It was clear to me 

that while they were desperate to communicate, they were sinking into various patterns of powerlessness, 

lack of control in their lives and classism about their roles as workers versus the more affluent 

Board members. I took numerous notes and listened well. I disregarded any names that were mentioned 

and concentrated on their concerns. I recognized that they had some very good points that I probably 

would have missed if I had been busy trying to defend myself. 

Later on during the meeting when some of the Board members began to criticize what had been said, 

I interrupted them and pointed out the validity of some of the staff's remarks. I also used this time to talk 

about patterned thinking and its effects on our understanding each other. I pointed out how everyone at 

the meeting was deeply concerned and committed to our organization's mission, and that we were 

lucky to have so many people who really cared about our work. When one person used some of the 

staff's comments to question my leadership of the organization, I was able to use my knowledge of how 

RC views attacks on leadership to explain why I was the target for frustrations that were really caused by 

an inadequate number of workers, emotionally difficult jobs and low pay. At the end of the meeting I 

helped form a task force of equal numbers of Board and staff members to address the problems raised 

that night. 

As I drove home from the meeting I marveled again and again at your brilliant thinking and the timing 

of my reading it. I had just faced one of the more difficult times of my working life, and I had managed 

it extremely well. I have no idea how I would have responded at the meeting if I hadn't read your piece, 

but there's a possibility it would have been somewhat less rational. 

In a fundamentals class that I'm assisting in right now, I'm continually emphasizing the importance of 

reading Present Time and other RC literature to help us remember our true nature. Before last week I 

spoke of this idea in a general sense, without any example in mind. Now I can easily illustrate my point 

with my own experience! 

16 

7 

washington, USA 

- 

- 

-

DELIBERATELY STEPPING OUT OF HABITS OF ISOLATION 

I believe that it is natural for 

people to be together, to enjoy 

each other, and to count on 

each other. Lately I find myself 

noticing isolation of myself 

and others, the noticing 

being an important first step 

toward changing the situation. 

Isolation shows up in assumptions, 

feelings and actions. 

I'm convinced that isolation 

is part of every group's 

oppression as well as everyone's 

individual hurts. When 

we feel bad about ourselves, 

we end up isolated. Unfortunately, 

for most of us, these 

feelings, patterns, and attitudes 

are chronic and often go 

unnoticed because so many of 

us are stuck in a similar way. 

Isolation in the U.S. looks like 

business-as-usual. 

Although I' ve been consciously 

acting against m y 

own and others' isolation, I 

haven't spent a lot of time analyzing 

it, so this is a first attempt. 

I w ill probably leave 

out some important pieces that 

other people w ill add. Even 

without having figured out all 

the angles, the decision to 

break the isolation has been 

useful. 

I grew up in New England 

and have lived here most of 

my life. I love New England 

and New Englanders; I can 

separate the person from the 

pattern and see that we have 

been hurt in a particular way. I 

was consciously given messages 

such as: "We are friendly 

to the neighbors, but not too 

friendly, because w e' ll get 

along better if we don't know 

each o t h er t o o w e l l . W e 

wouldn't want to get to know 

someone and then always 

have them want to be around 

us. This way we stick to our 

own f am ily (good people 

without quirks), and things 

can remain polite an d n o 

messes w ill be created that 

need to be cleaned up later." 

And of course we never intruded 

or asked for help although 

we would sometimes 

offer help. Yuck! Sounds like 

isolation to me. 

Having had the opportunity 

to travel out of the United 

States a n d h avin g m ad e 

friends here with people from 

other countries, I am beginning 

to comprehend the peculiarities 

o f isolation i n the 

United States. A friend o f 

mine told me that a friend of 

hers from Nicaragua noted 

that people i n the United 

States who were going about 

their daily business looked 

worse than people in Nicaragua. 

He described the faces as 

"without a soul." His observation 

made me think we must 

be cut off from each other. 

In the United States being 

independent is a p rimary 

value even if it doesn't have 

much to do with the current 

reality. Perhaps extreme independence 

was useful or appeared 

useful at certain times 

in the history of the United 

States. I've found that in many 

other countries and cultures, 

independence, as in "I can do 

this on my own. I don't need 

any help, and if I don't make 

it, I won't tell anybody and I'll 

pretend to be strong" is not 

expected. 

17 

This brand o f isolation 

shows up in families in the 

United Sates. The family has 

been made into a small unit 

that is expected to find solutions 

to large societal problems 

on its own, acting as if 

everything is fine w h en i t 

isn't. 

Pitting people against each 

other for profit is the motive 

for the extreme isolation in the 

United States. 

Sometimes I think about 

how the United States is isolated 

f ro m the rest o f the 

world, this time because of its 

role as oppressor. If ! think of 

the countries of the world as 

young people in a neighborhood 

playing with each other, 

I think of the United States as 

a bully who used to think he or 

she was the best and kind of 

knows that it isn't true now. 

That leaves t h e U . S. d e - 

fensively insisting that it is the 

best and fearing that it is not, 

ignorant of others, and isolated. 

As I write, I am seeing isolation 

as feeling or being alone 

in a difficult situation, assuming 

that we should be alone, 

and assuming that we should 

solve the problems ourselves. 

There is also the pressure to 

pretend that everything is fine; 

we can manage; we are strong. 

And then I'm sure that most of 

us blame ourselves if things 

are not going well. 

I've been taking a peek 

lately at isolation and breaking 

through a bit, which is 

what I want to report. continued...

continued... 

I have decided to reach out 

to people indiscriminately 

(I'm sure that I'm still being 

very careful), and to reach out 

FOR MYSELF. I have called up 

a fairly new friend and invited 

myself to tea. I got a return call 

too! I have invited myself over 

to visit the family next door. 

That was returned too! When 

feeling lousy, I have called 

people in addition to my regular 

Co-Counselor. W h e n 

people ask if they can help me, 

instead of saying "no" the way 

I used to, I say "yes" immediately 

and then think about 

how they can help. And guess 

what? When you're friendly to 

the neighbors, they DO want 

to talk to you and be around 

you. For me that brings up feelings 

about demands and pulls 

on me (I knew it would), and I 

get to keep making decisions. 

I've really just started with 

breaking the isolation, but as I 

continue, I' m sure I' ll have 

more feelings, more decisions 

to make, and that my life will 

look very different. For me to 

write this before I've actually 

gotten through the hard places 

and have the whole package 

tied up neatly, is breaking 

through isolation. 

I've also found it useful to 

notice and cherish connections 

that I have and reaffirm many 

of these. For instance, for ten 

years I had eaten dinner on Fri- 

day nights with a group of 

about twelve people. I was 

feeling disgruntled, disconnected, 

and ambivalent about 

whether to stay in the group. I 

took a short "sabbatical" and 

came back to the group. I saw 

everyone's shortcomings just 

as clearly, but I had a perspective 

of cherishing these people 

and our connections; I also felt 

that I belonged. I asked myself 

the question, "If we can't make 

a decision to get along with 

and appreciate each other, how 

can we demand world peace?" 

It would be pretty abstract. 

18 

The talk in counseling of 

"all for one and one for all" 

coincided with many of my 

decisions and has been very 

useful even if most of us are 

still just poking at it. I appreciate 

that view of reality because 

I believe that being connected 

with each other, helping 

each other, and counting 

on each other are part of who 

we really are. 

Sabra Dow 

Newburyport, Massachusetts, USA 

reprinted from "The Newburyport 

Connection" RC newsletter 

photo by Anne Temple

CROSSING BARRIERS IN EASTERN EUROPE 

I have very good news about RC in Romania 

and Eastern Europe. Our Community asked 

MoInk Gabriella to lead a workshop in Romania 

on April 10-12. For many of us it was the first 

International workshop they ever participated in. 

Nine Romanians and eight Hungarians participated; 

we were all impressed with the willingness 

of the Hungarian Co-Counselors to attend and 

were delighted to welcome more of them than we 

had expected. 

I'm very proud of the way we organized and 

how responsibly everybody did their part of the 

work. We learned a lot about being able to handle 

finances without dramatizing about it, about working 

together efficiently without unaware clienting, 

about the deep commitment of our leadership to 

RC, and about the fact that we can relax about 

how things are moving in our Community. Most of 

us grew a lot through participating in the organizing 

activities. 

I think the workshop was a very important happening 

for many reasons, but also because it cut 

through the pattern of Eastern Europeans of waiting 

for the Westerners to come and teach us RC, 

that we valued the excellent leadership of Gabriella 

who lives "right next door," and we built some 

connections within the Region. 

I'm enclosing another report about the workshop, 

written in both Romanian and English by Ion 

Julian, a young man whose work and commitment 

and integrity fully justify the great hopes we have 

for him. Therefore I will only try to complete the 

image of the happenings with my own information 

and opinions. 

On Friday morning, before leaving for the workshop 

site, Gabi held a leaders' meeting, counseling 

each Romanian teacher on her difficulties and 

leaving more time for Roxana who couldn't come 

to the workshop. 

The workshop itself was held in a village at a 

weekend house. The site was beautiful with everything 

blooming and the fresh green leaves of the 

spring coming out. Our leader followed a "regular" 

International workshop schedule. It was very 

useful that at the beginning, before introductions, 

19 

Gabi put everything into a world-wide RC perspective 

by reminding us that many other RCers 

were sitting in similarly important workshops at 

that moment, and listing some of these (an impressive 

list!). 

Support groups were set up so as to give a 

chance to young Romanian leaders to take charge, 

even in very challenging situations. I was very 

pleased that they asked for advice and help, that 

they rose to the challenge and were pleased with 

the job they did. 

Throughout the workshop Gabi did a lot of 

demonstrations. We admired her commitment to 

work with everybody in front of the group, which 

she kept in spite of difficulties with the timing. We 

learned a lot from the way she took note of 

everybody's difficulties during introductions and 

went back to those in people's sessions. Also, she 

was impressively relaxed about the happenings, 

even when on Sunday morning one of the cars 

broke down and several participants had to miss 

all activities that days to repair it, which turned the 

schedule completely upside-down. 

One highlight was the work of the young and/or 

new translators who were beautifully supported 

by Csikós Eva, sweated a lot in front of the class 

and did a very good and useful job, getting better 

and better the more they worked. 

I also loved a very powerful demonstration on 

early sexual memories, which moved the client 

miles forward in her re-emergence, as it turned out 

later, but also produced lots of discharge in the 

audience and was an excellent learning situation 

for us Romanians who have worked little on this 

subject. (This has changed since the workshop.) 

Throughout the workshop we had discussions 

with the Hungarians about their experience in RC 

around organizing, finances and about the situation 

in Eastern Europe. We learned a lot from 

their matter-of-fact way of handling things. 

For my own leadership, organizing the workshop 

and watching Gabi lead it was of great importance. 

I feel that our Community did something 

really "historical" (As we found out, it was the first 

continued...

continued... 

"real" workshop led by Gabi abroad), and it's a 

solid precedent for other such actions in the future. 

I was effective all the time and my co-workers 

thought that I said good-bye to my old habit of 

dramatizing my feelings every time I had to lead 

instead of doing the job. Eva's counseling helped a 

lot to make me realize that it's useless to try to fight 

everybody's struggle, that they will do it for themselves 

and use my assistance when appropriate. 

Now I'm relaxed about the solidness of our Community 

and I think we leaders are prepared to take 

over for each other while the others rest and use 

RC for their own benefit. 

Some plans that emerged after the workshop 

are: 

'to hold regular Regional workshops under 

Gabi's leadership; 

ewe were invited to the International workshop 

to be led by Chuck Esser in September in Budapest 

and will try to attend as many as possible; 

There is nothing so enticing as that which is forbidden 

And so no limits will ¡place on your explorations 

For everything must have an equal chance 

To win your attention and delight. 

This will be a fair fight. 

And we will win. 

How can we lose. 

With the power to heal 

No wound can deal a death blow. 

I know, 

How well I know. 

The battlegrounds may change 

(Sorry to objectify you, my love) 

But the fight remains the same. 

And/am a warrior of the first class. 

It is my destiny—I can't go back 

To the place 

Where fear freezes you numb. 

lam the virago, 

The amazon, 

and you are my delight. 

No terror 

No fight 

Can keep me from what ¡must do. 

For I have seen your innocence, 

And nothing, 

Jason 

• Codruta will soon start a class on how to teach 

RC for the present and future RC teachers; 

ewe are supporting Roxana who will start her 

first fundamentals class next week; 

20 

ewe started to do "learning days" for our Community 

members because many of us have such 

struggles; 

'I'm thinking of ways to solve our financial difficulties 

and patterns; 

ewe plan to have The Human Situation translated 

by July so that I can bring it with me to the 

U.S. when I come. Paper and multiplications of 

literature are still huge problems financially. 

Several Co-Counselors participated in a TV 

program of the Bucharest TV Youth Program Department, 

speaking about our young people's 

group and RC in general. It's due next Tuesday. 

Nothing 

Can destroy it. 

You are music 

Laughter 

Tenderness 

Passion and love. 

You are power, 

And have always known 

This is true. 

Violeta Vajda 

Timisoara, Romania 

So go bounding into the world 

And know t h a t / 

aOur m hands, o u t our lips need never touch again; 

tYou h know e r what e you mean tome, 

t 

And/know 

o o . 

what mean to you. 

Carol Joseph 

Austin, Texas, USA 

photo by Lynn Sahal

intre 10-12 aprilie Intr-un sat de 

linga Timi§oara a avut loe primul 

Atelier International din Romania. 

Au participat oameni din Ungaria 

§i Romania. 

Atelierul a fost condus de Persoana 

de Referinta Regionala' pentru 

Centrul si Sud-Estul Europei, 

Molnar Gabriella. 

Atelieml a inceput vineri dupa 

amiaza eu un scurr euvint de introducere. 

Apoi, dupa ce fiercare a 

raspuns citorva intrebari pentru a 

se prezenta §i penult a arata activitatea 

sa In RC §i dupa o scurta prezentare 

de teorie, s-a trecut la 

votarea suport-gruputilor. Au fost 

formate patm suport-grupuri pe 

trei teme: relatiile dintre femei si 

barbati, frica si a savura viata. 

The first International workshop 

in Romania took place between 

April 10 and 12 in a village near 

Timisoara, with attendants from 

Hungary and Romania. 

The workshop was led by the 

Regional Reference Person for 

Central and South-Eastern Europe, 

Molnar Gabriella. 

It started Friday, the 10th of 

April in the afternoon with a short 

introduction. Then, after everybody 

answered some questions 

about himself or herself to present 

her/his activity in RC and after 

some theory, we went on to the 

vote of support groups. There were 

four support groups on three topics: 

relationships between women 

Atelier International in Romania 

Conducatorii acestor suport-gmpuri 

au fost: Mihai Bradean " A 

savura viata," Csikós Eva si Pup 

Petpu—"Frica" iar eu--"Relatiile 

dintre femei si barbati." S-au tinut 

apoi primele suport-gmpuri dupa 

care conducatoml a racut eiteva 

demonstratii. A§a s-a incheiat 

prima zi. 

Simbata dupa micul dejun a urmat 

o noua clash' care a Inceput eu 

o prezentare teoretica apoix clteva 

demonstratii. Au utmat suport-grupurl 

care au beneficiat de mai mult 

timp de asta data. 

Dupa panz a utmat o noua clasa 

In care au predominat demonstratiile 

§i seara s-au tinut din nou 

supon-gmpuri. Tot in aceasta dupa 

amiazax s-au format i trei topic- 

International Workshop in Romania 1 

(translation of the report above) 

and men, fear, and enjoying life. 

The leaders of these support groups 

were: Mihai Bradean (Enjoying 

Life), Csikós Eva and Pusa Petcu 

(Fear), and me (Relationships Between 

Women and Men). Then we 

held the first support groups after 

which the leader did some demonstrations. 

It was the end of the first 

day. 

Saturday after breakfast followed 

another class which started 

with theory and some demonstrations. 

Next were support groups 

which benefitted of more time on 

this occasion. 

After lunch we had another class 

in which the demonstrations prevailed 

and then again support 

21 

gmpuri conduse de Molnar Gabriella: 

Intrebari despre RC, Kata: 

despre viata in spital si Zoli: despre 

contacte romanomaghiare. 

A treia zi a ineeput foarte trist. 

Am avut necazuri la una din 

ma§ini, ceea ce pe patm dintre noi 

ne-a obligat sa seam sa o repararn 

toata ziva. Programul aeestei zile a 

fost schimbat si s-au racut numai 

demonstratii. 

Un merit deosebit 1-au avut 

traducatorii care vi-au facut treaba 

foarte bine. 

Cred ca fiecare dintre noi am 

avut ce Invata la aeest atelier. 

t:t" 

s 

Ion lulian 

Romania 

groups. This afternoon there were 

three topic groups led by Gabriella 

(Questions about RC), Kata (Life 

in the Hospital) and Zoli (Romanian-Hungarian 

Contacts). 

The third day started very sadly. 

We had some trouble with one of 

the cars and four of us had to stay 

and repair it all day. This day's 

program was changed and there 

were a lot of demonstrations. 

The interpreters had a great 

merit; they did their jobs very well. 

I think that each of us had a lot to 

learn at this workshop. 

Ion lulian 

Romania

GROWING INTO EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP 

Having Budapest set up as an organized Area was a very good idea in every aspect. Eva 

Csikós is doing fine as the Area Reference Person, making fine decisions, practicing to say no, 

learning to delegate jobs, asking for help, organizing, and accepting real support, not just validation. 

In my opinion the best thing we did recently for the Community was a workshop on relationships. 

There were four of us who led the four classes while one of us was the responsible leader 

of the workshop. This was the best-ever workshop we led for ourselves. The four of us invested 

about fifty hours of planning, reading, thinking, discharging, and there is no doubt, the result was 

worth all that much work. Co-Counseling relationships became alive more than ever before. We 

planned thoughtful actions of real support for some RCers who were facing difficulties. The most 

interesting was when we were there for a young woman who had surgery on her leg. The medical 

staff in the hospital agreed to cooperate, so we had in fact complete freedom to be there fully for 

her. Ten RCers participated in this two-week-long, very intense project, which meant that she 

had counselors at her bed for sixteen hours a day for more than week while she has been in the 

hospital. Her recovery process became a miracle for the doctors and roommates and took only 

half as much time as they had expected. When the surgery on the other leg happens in a few 

weeks a counselor will be there even in the surgery room! She promised to report in detail soon. 

I'm learning to act as Regional Reference Person. That means I keep regular contact with the 

leaders and am making new contacts in the hope and trust that some of them will start RC where 

they live. Branka got much more organized recently; she not only keeps the only group of Split 

together, but does organizing and kept on going during the blockade and war too. She is thinking 

well in this crisis and our correspondence breaks the isolation they suffer. She asked me to go 

there and lead a workshop, saying that they needed personal contact against the terror and 

isolation. Theoretically I say yes, but the shortest and cheapest way to get there (this means 

train) is not safe at all, and the way she had suggested (air + bus + boat) is much too expensive, 

so I'll wait till things slow down a little bit. 

Last weekend I led the first Regional workshop which was organized in Romania. Eleven people 

from Timisoara attended (two of them Hungarians, one mixed Hungarian-Romanian) and 

seven people from Hungary joined me. l was asked to speak English. I got paid for leading the 

workshop: I got equivalent of fifteen dollars (which is a lot of money in Romania, about half a 

rnonth's salary) plus sixty liters of petrol which was easier for them to give than it was to give 

money. We had the workshop in a small village in a very old one-room-plus-kitchen little house 

where there was no water, no toilet, no heating in the house. All people from Romania slept in the 

only room, the Hungarians in somebody else's house. There was very simple shared food which 

the Romanians brought from home. We had two meals in the "restaurant" of the village, which 

otherwise is closed down due to lack of food and interest. 

Isolation feelings and feeling not being cared about, or being unimportant, were very heavy, so 

it was a real breakthrough to have the workshop happen there. l asked for a meeting with the 

leaders before we left for the countryside. There are five teachers. I met all of thém. One could 

not come to the workshop. They all said the best thing I could do for them was counseling them, 

so that was what I did. They worked in different ways, but many of them worked on having me 

and people from Hungary "there" (in their homes, in their country, in their Community). Our just 

22

eing there was a deep enough contradiction to their feelings of unimportance, and challenged 

the "statement": "Romanians come last." Time was much too short and there is much l could 

have done if we had had more time. I concentrated on working on heavy, terrifying issues with as 

many people as l could. Blocked relationships, not being able to rest, lack of self-confidence, 

ageism, difficulties around the opposite sex, tense women-men relationships, oppression of 

young people, sexual abuse, aggressiveness, and fear were typical issues. l taught classes on 

young people, relationships, efficient counseling, Central-Eastern Europe. There were many 

questions about money, organizing, the International RC Community, wide-world issues, 

leading. 

The trip brought up a lot of feelings in us from Hungary around being Hungarian, speaking 

Hungarian, being relatively rich in Romania no matter how poor we are at home, around food/ 

diet/lack of food, around aggressiveness at crossing the borders, etc. 

l got excellent support from my Community members in general and especially from my two 

regular Co-Counselors. There was much resource helping me to do the job, good caring and 

everything a workshop leader could get in circumstances like that. However there was no time 

for me to deal with anything which was not directly connected to my job as leader of the workshop. 

l hope that the Romanians will report on the workshop. 

Since l teach an ongoing class, go to three support groups, am counselor-of-last-resort for 

many people, translate, organize, all this covers much of my life. I have moved in some other 

ways too. l am much more aware and relaxed about being a journalist of opposition again. l had 

a period of personal disappointments when it turned out that my and my colleagues' jobs at the 

newspaper are even more shaky than they have been during the previous system; the only 

difference is that it became much easier to fire anybody from any job. In the past l rejected every 

extra profitmaking activity and tried to manage on whatever money l had. Now l don't reject 

every type of overwork, just the ones which involve moral and/or political abuse. This means l 

work much more, am tired most of the time but have at least a bit more money than the 

minimum. l have good, relaxed contact with people around me, including my mother. 

My adult friends still cannot understand that 

I don't do things with children to "help" them; 

they are simply fun and interesting to be with. I 

have a very solid reputation now as someone 

who relates to children well. I'm happy about 

that reputation as opposed to one of being a 

great leader or teacher of children—my reputation 

is built a lot on the children telling the 

adults how great I am as opposed to the adults 

feeling impressed. The adults are usually very 

skeptical at first, though word of mouth is 

making this easier. 

• - • 

Learning Slowly, But Learning 

23 

Molna• r Gabriella 

Budapest, Hungary 

I had a flattering experience yesterday. Two 

young friends and I were at a great playground 

in a low-income neighborhood. We were the 

only white people there, but that didn't pull my 

attention. I was, of course, on the bottom in 

every game, being shot at and kicked all around 

the place. Other children started to come over 

and watch and smile, though I couldn't draw 

them in. Then about ten minutes later I noticed 

that one mother who had been sitting on a 

bench earlier was lying on the ground laughing 

while her daughter "pounded" her. I may have 

done my first good RC "demonstration." 

Jim Shackelford 

Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA

A Fine New Kind of Travelling 'Missionary' 

I'm on another adventure, 

reaching out of my isolation to 

people in rural areas. It feels 

terrifying and confusing and 

sometimes lonely. Mostly, it's 

fun and feels very worthwhile. 

I've made heaps of new friends 

and had some very unexpected 

rewards. I'm seeing leadership 

develop and people supporting 

each other and me in new and 

creative ways. 

I have found that having 

someone to set goals with each 

day is a real boon for me—although 

a tree is good too! I like 

to include discharge time and 

thinking time. I review yesterday 

in order to celebrate and reevaluate 

or maybe change priorities. 

I go to a town where I may 

know a few people but I don't 

have a place to stay. Because of 

my circumstances, I need to ask 

someone to allow me to camp 

in their back yard and share 

their kitchen and toilet. This is 

hard and certainly goes against 

my self-sufficiency pattern, but 

it makes me more vulnerable 

and I find people like to share. 

Soon, I've made a nice, easy 

contact with someone else. The 

next time I come to town, I may 

do the same with another family 

and I soon have a wide network 

of people who feel I'm 

'family.' 

I look people up, listen and 

learn about them and their 

community. Who are the people 

who are well-loved and 

draw others to them? I meet 

them and draw them out on 

their ideas for society and for 

the future. I sometimes ask 

them i f they'd like to share 

some tools I find useful in my 

life. 

I find Patty Wipfler's pamphlets 

on children and setting 

up listening partnerships for 

parents very useful as I visit 

playgroups, community centres, 

kindergartens, welfare 

agencies and Aboriginal centres. 

The care givers are often 

intrigued to hear of health care 

professionals using support 

groups for themselves. If there 

are programmes dealing with 

addictions including co-dependency 

in town, I often meet 

people who are out of denial 

and seeking out tools for enhancing 

their progress. All this 

is done in easy steps over several 

return visits. Because I'm 

new in town, people want to 

know what I'm doing and what 

motivates me to this 'strange' 

life style. They are often fascinated 

with the theory and don't 

need a lot of encouragement to 

want to go for more power in 

their lives. Parties are more fun 

if I get brave enough to introduce 

a 'talking-stick circle' 

where the person with the stick 

has the right to be listened to 

while she speaks from the 

heart, then the stick gets passed 

around the circle for everyone 

to share. 

Festivals and walks which 

draw people from all over the 

South/West have been part of 

my life for a few years and these 

are great places to get together 

with the other Co-Counsellors 

present to maybe organize introductory 

sessions and support 

groups and generally see 

that everything goes well. 

24 

When I get a group of people 

interested, I run a weekend fundamentals 

class to be followed 

a few months later by a further 

weekend of learning and practicing 

as a group. Meanwhile 

the participants have been, 

hopefully, following the session 

format from 'Listening 

Partnerships for Parents' followed 

by session reports. If 

there is an experienced Co- 

Counsellor in the area I encourage 

him to give ongoing leadership. 

Videos of Charlie Kreiner's 

two-day workshop in Perth last 

November have been i n - 

valuable as an introduction to 

RC theory about the oppressive 

society and how we can take 

power in all our relationships. 

The local men's groups are all 

wanting copies so they can use 

them again and again and parents 

are questioning ways of 

interacting with their children. 

My next project is to edit nine 

hours of wonderful videos of 

Patty and Tim's family workshop 

here to have an introductory 

to children's work. Along 

with the videos from Rational 

Island on classism, sexism and 

introductory theory, we have 

some powerful tools to leave 

with people. 

I have been able to encourage 

each community to buy literature 

for a local RC library 

from the money generated by 

the classes and encourage each 

member to have it at their house 

for a while. That's when i t 

seems to get read! I am not able 

to stay very long in one place 

but I do keep coming back. I 

find that my not being part of

the local scene makes it safer for 

people to counsel with me on 

their difficulties with others 

they meet all the time. 

Small towns are hard places 

to hide within your isolation. If 

your Co-Counsellors have seen 

you being your wonderful self 

in class and sessions, I find they 

will tend to notice more quickly 

if you get into difficulties and 

they'll call you on it. 

My next goal is to set up ongoing 

support groups which 

are relevant tó the members 

and will make it easier to include 

in RC people from other 

oppressed groups, for example, 

eliminating w h i te ra ci sm 

groups to make the Co-Counselling 

Community safer for 

Aboriginal people. • 

Wendy Revell has shared 

some of her thinking with me 

about setting up the Margaret 

River community. She says to 

recruit people from various 

groups into your first classes so 

the RC Community reflects the 

composition of the larger community 

and thus doesn't get 

lop-sided with one particular 

group and shunned by others. 

I'm asking people in my classes 

to share themselves with more 

people outside their social context 

and make friends across 

those old barriers. This is happening 

quite naturally with the 

LETS (local energy transfer system) 

which is growing rapidly 

all over the South/West. 

Now, I'm exploring how to 

enhance my Co-Counselling 

relationships with the other Co- 

Counsellors who have been in 

the area for a few years but are 

isolated from each other. In the 

past few months they are all 

taking powerful leadership in 

Co-Counselling locally and we 

will hopefully form a topic 

group at the next all-in workshop 

in Perth. Meanwhile we're 

making commitments to see 

each other clearly and remind 

each other of our inherent natures. 

I'm getting to know and 

interact with their families 

thereby helping the process of 

naturalizing RC. 

Difficulties in rural areas 

*Everyone knows everyone 

else. This can lead to strong 

support but sometimes to lack 

of confidentiality and gossip, 

hence lack of safety. 

*denial and intense reaction 

to change in some sectors of the 

community 

*addictive behaviour (as 

everywhere) 

Personal Challenges 

*acquiring a means of good 

telephone linkup 

*acquiring a comfortable 

vehicle with space for organization 

•better communication with 

my family and friends 

*long-term maintenance of 

the communities. 

25 

Personal Benefits 

*natural contact with people 

in their homes 

*instant "grandchildren" 

wherever I go 

'closer, reciprocal commitments 

with other Co-Counsellors 

*feeling at home all over our 

beautiful South/West, o n 

farms, orchards, intentional 

communities, with government 

workers, new age practitioners, 

and Aboriginal people. I find I 

can still milk a cow. 

*watching the rapid spread 

of community-building projects 

like LETS, communal gardens, 

tree plantings, co-operative 

housing, programmes between 

environmentalists and 

local farmers to reclaim areas, 

adult-child ren-of-alco holics, 

overeaters anonymous and 

other twenty-step programmes 

'my world is a better place 

for me to live. 

Goals—to spread the idea of 

our inherent goodness with its 

healing mechanisms from Albany 

on the South coast of 

Western Australia, Bunbury on 

the West coast, to Perth, 540 

kilometers north and all the 

small communities in between. 

Margaret Whittle 

South/West of Western Australia

T: IE CONCRETE WORK OF ELIMINATING YOUL RACISM 

—Jennifer Wexler 

Through the process of organizing white people to discharge patterns of white racism and to act to 

end racism and classism, I have listened to many people and tried to be of assistance. This is a summary 

of the areas that seem to bring discharge and assist people to actually reach toward making friends with 

people of color, move in the direction of caring about all people and ending racism and classism. 

think it's important to remember that racism and classism have to be tackled together. Racism 

dehumanizes white people and keeps us discouraged, despairing and tolerating class society. Racism 

cuts off our natural ability to care about all human beings. This puts us in great danger. 

Racism makes it "us" versus "them." We are in fact one human race. What is significant is that human 

beings are very beautiful and creative. We get to learn from each other's cultures and points of view. 

Because the world population is over three-quarters people of color, every liberation constituency is 

predominantly people of color. If this is not the case it is only because of racism and classism. 

Our humanness is dependent on taking a look at racism. We have constructed a great pseudo-reality 

to avoid doing so. 

I encourage every white Co-Counselor to set up a support group and work on this. Here are enough 

directions for you to work with for a • 

yagainst e a r your o heaviest r t wdistress. o . It makes a difference; your life will be improved. Love each other well in 

your support group—each person is a resource to be cherished. 

E n j o y 

1 

e Don't a forget c to h make friends with people of color. 

o t h e r . 

0 0 1. 1 1 1 1 ) / 

/ e l a # 

0 ? 4 

0_ 

I r O j 

Y 

w 

h 

, • - 

oSuggested u Directions for Discharging Patterns , • ' , o of . ' White Racism 

i l and l 

, „ e ' . 

Steps Toward Breaking Free of P. 

Racism 

0 e f 

a v 

• 

WORKING e WITH EARLY MEMORIES 

6. Make the (repeated) decision to make 

a 1. What comes up when you put attention on 

your c earliest h memory a of noticing n that there are any 

other colors of skin in the world besides pink? 

c e 

friends—focus on taking initiative toward people 

of color. Discharge on the spot where it feels hard 

to move close(r) to people of color. 

t 2. Scan early memories of friendships with 

people o of color. 

h 

3. Describe what 

i 

racism was like in your family 

when t you were growing up. 

u 

MAKING p FRIENDS 

4. Put your attention on caring, expressing your 

7. Explore "funny" motivations towards people 

of color (e.g. "I feel embarrassed that I'm always 

with white people." "I should have friends who 

are people of color..."). 

8. Work on what comes up for you regarding 

expressing thoughtful, public caring toward people 

of color. 

caring for others, caring about other people, all 

people, people of color, white people—noticing 

that you care about others. What do you hit up 

against? 

9. Discharge heavy and light fears associated 

with getting close, for example: 

•Fear of getting attacked or rejected by white 

5. What's in your way of making friends? Where 

do you need a hand? 

people for being close to people of color or 

for visibly ending racism in other ways. 

26

*Feeling timid, awkward, or stiff in making 

friends with people of color. 

*Clean up key hurtful (frightening, sad) incidences 

involving racism and/or people of 

color. 

10. Discharge on feeling that you don't belong 

with people of color or they don't want you 

around. 

11 Put attention on relationships with current 

friends of color. 

12. What is it like for you to listen to the anger of 

people of color? 

INTERNALIZED OPPRESSION GETS IN THE 

WAY OF BEING AN EFFECTIVE ALLY AND 

FRIEND 

13. How does your internalized oppression (e.g. 

as female, Gay, Jew, Catholic, working class, 

middle class, Wygelian, etc.) get in the way of being 

fully human with people of color? 

THE INTERSECTION OF CLASSISM AND 

RACISM 

14. Discharge on how your class background 

affects getting close to people of color. 

15. Notice and discharge on the ways you feel 

superior to people of color (e.g. "They don't speak 

correctly." "They don't know how to do things the 

right way," etc.). 

16. Put attention on how much you care about 

ending racism. 

17. Notice manifestations of racism, and discharge 

on your feelings about them. 

18. Notice and discharge on feelings of confusion 

about (eliminating) racism. 

19. Decide [see #4] to end living an isolated, 

segregated life. 

OUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON TAKING A LOOK 

AT RACISM 

20. Notice how it feels to see the effects of 

racism on people o f color, particularly your 

friends. 

21. Describe memories and experiences of witnessing 

racism. 

22. Try these directions: 

*Give up trying to create a classless society 

with white people only. 

o Give up white control. 

*Give up that there is one right way to be human, 

to do things, etc. 

CLEANING UP BEING WHITE 

22. Notice and discharge on how (you and/or 

other) white people's humanness is horribly distorted 

by racism. 

23. Discharge anger at white people about racism. 

(See racism as a dreadful distress recording 

we all carry, some acting more vicious then others, 

dispelling the myth that there are some "good" 

whites and some "bad" whites.) 

24. White identity—"name it, claim it, discharge 

all about it and throw it away." 

25. Talk about feeling guilty about racism. 

TAKING CHARGE OF ELIMINATING RACISM 

26. Pay attention to your vision for the world. 

27. Describe times you interrupted racism (regardless 

of how trifling it feels). 

28. Notice what feels difficult for you about 

interrupting racism. 

29. Discharge on feelings about making a difference 

toward eliminating racism. (Suggested 

phrase: "I can make a difference. Everything I do to 

end racism is significant.") 

30. Discharge feelings of hopelessness and 

powerlessness about eliminating racism. (This 

may require pushing up against the place in our 

minds where we feel completely powerless; sometimes 

wrestling with someone who has agreed to 

be your counselor provides a good contradiction.) 

30. Part One: Do a "think and listen" on big and 

bold steps that will eliminate racism (for example, 

take on your union, take on mortgage red-lining at 

continued...

continued... 

your bank, work on a political campaign, work 

with your young person's school/classroom, organize 

your neighborhood, change policy, work 

with your church/temple, create new policy, interrupt 

racism, organize). 

Part Two: Discharge. o 

o 

Part Three: Develop little steps that will move 

the big, bold vision forward and keep discharging. 

BUILDING DIVERSE COMMUNITIES 

31. Discharge on what's in the way of you personally 

getting the tools and insights of RC into the 

hands of people of color. 

32. Discharge feeling bad or uncomfortable 

about the current predominantly white state of 

your area. 

33. Discharge "funny" motivations about "getting 

them into RC." 

Winter finally seems to be ending in London 

town and the snow drops are covering the 

garden. Things are changing very fast which 

is good as it's normally for the better. The 

young people's fundamentals class is now to 

be led by Vivika, an eleven-year-old young 

woman who is very smart around younger 

young people. I'm organising and supporting 

her assistant. There are loads of young people 

who are interested. All we need are more 

young leaders in South London. 

College has been hard. I'm doing lots of 

things around young women. Education for 

sixteen-to-eighteen-years-olds is being 

turned on its head, with industry having much 

stronger control and college needing to be 

"financially viable." Senior management is 

very scared and lying continuously. They have 

also been attacking individuals. I've been 

building a relationship with them but it is hard 

People at Important Ages 

28 

34. Notice what's in your way of giving excellent 

counseling to people of color. 

35. Discharge on what's difficult for you personally 

to fully and actively support and develop 

the leadership of people of color. 

36. Notice that you personally make a difference 

as a friend and ally. 

37. Discharge more on making friends with 

people of color in the "wide world." 

38. Make a commitment to do whatever it takes 

to clean up patterns of white racism—yours and 

other Community members'. 

39. Organize a support or discharge group to 

focus on breaking free of racism. 

40. Develop a team of people working on this 

individually and together. 

Hyde Park, Massachusetts, USA 

going. But it's not really their fault nor do they 

have much control over the situation. 

Our black-Jewish alliance work is moving 

again. l had a good chat with a black friend of 

mine. We have both learnt a lot and found we 

were thinking along the same lines. We have 

both promised each other to fight for autonomy 

on a social policy committee in the National 

Union of Students for Jews and blacks 

even if it takes three years which it may due to 

the NUS constitution. Unfortunately I think 

she is going to have a tougher time with the 

black group than I will with the Jews. 

I'm really looking forward to the Women's 

Conference in April. There are loads of young 

women going which will be ace. The young 

people's community in England has really 

seized upon gender work, which is good. 

Ruth Mason 

London, England

ONE OF THE CORES OF 

I fell to the floor, stifling a gasp as the burning 

flashed through my ankle. Chronically 

weak, my ankle had a tendency to sprain. As I 

sat in a heap on the floor, I immediately shut 

out the pain as I had learned to do over the 

years. 

Fortunately, this happened at a Co-Counseling 

workshop last November, and I was 

quickly surrounded b y Co-Counselors, embracing 

me, holding my hands and ankle and 

encouraging me to let go, to feel the pain. I can't 

remember ever having this kind of attention 

during a hurt. 

For long minutes it seemed as if I felt nothing. 

I closed my eyes and then, like bubbles 

from a deep lake, memories of high school 

football practices came to me. Day after day of 

physical punishment, running into other guys 

as hard as I could, getting tackled, blocked, 

getting knocked down again and again and 

getting up ready for more. My forearms bled 

every day, m y knees were bruised and I 

sprained both ankles often. 

The memory of those practices hadn't come 

back to me once in over twenty years. I had 

forgotten about the pain and the suppression 

of the pain and my willingness to subject myself 

to it. My reaction was stinging tears, deep 

sobbing, and shortness of breath as the memories 

flooded over me. And still, incredibly, I 

also felt shame from crying about it. 

Thinking about the incident, specifically 

having so much attention focused on me during 

a hurt, has led me to insights about my own 

male conditioning and how it relates to suppression 

of pain. 

It is interesting precisely how the pain becomes 

suppressed. It is not a conscious thing 

but like a reflex, happening instantly. Along 

with this reflex is a specific fear that if I allow 

myself to feel the pain, something worse will 

happen. The "worse thing" would be to cry or 

show distress and thereby be labeled a "sissy" 

or "unmanly"; this was particularly true in the 

context of high school football. 

29 

LE OPPRESSION 

The willingness with which I forced myself 

to endure these football practices is remarkable. 

At the time no one was pressuring me, it 

just seemed like a good idea. In thinking about 

it though, a memory from an earlier time came 

to me. 

In the seventh grade I was called to the porch 

one day for a talk with my father. I was afraid 

because this only happened when I did something 

wrong. This day he told me how disappointed 

he was that I hadn't tried out for the 

football team. My father was in the Air Force 

and we had just moved to the town. I had no 

friends and felt shy about trying out for the 

team alone and I told him this. He said that 

didn't matter, all that mattered was that I make 

the team and play football and until then he 

would be disappointed. 

Add to this long-forgotten conversation all 

the media glorification of football players; they 

are held up as models for young men, paid 

astronomical salaries, and praised for their 

courage and determination. (Never is it mentioned 

that over sixty percent of all professional 

football players w ill leave the game within 

three years with debilitating injuries!) 

I have worked as a carpenter most of my 

adult life and a lot of the stress of that job is 

physical pain: heavy lifting, exposure to extremes 

of weather, and falls from ladders and 

scaffolds, along with noisy, dangerous tools 

and the cuts, scrapes, bruises, and splinters that 

result from the work. I've been involved in 

pain and the suppression of pain every day of 

my life as a carpenter. The way I, and the men 

I've worked with, handle pain on the job is to 

ignore it, make fun of it, hold it in, or get angry. 

My detachment from pain has allowed me to 

systematically push myself beyond healthy 

stopping points. 

The result of this has been accidents and injury, 

all of which I have accepted (until now) 

almost without question. 

During football practice the acceptable ways 

of showing our pain were: grit your teeth and 

continued...

continued... 

hold it in, make fun of it with jokes and sarcasm, 

or get angry and use foul language. When 

we failed in a tackle or block or didn't hit 

someone with sufficient ferocity, the coaches 

would yell and scream and compare us to girls 

saying things like, "My sister could do better 

than that!" 

Last year my wife and I were seeing a private 

family counselor about communication with 

our daughter. Near the end of the session, reacting 

to one of my comments, the counselor said, 

"You strike me as a person who's not had much 

suffering." 

I immediately lost my reserved self-control, 

"That's a hell of a mistake if you really think 

that," I said, surprising myself as I listed all the 

pains and suffering I had personally experienced. 

Then I launched into a tirade on the 

state of the world with its poverty, ignorance, 

disease, and war. 

These things are all true but my trouble was 

not having many opportunities to talk about 

my pain, to show it, and to ask for help and 

attention in dealing with it. My internal conditioning 

prevented it. 

The kind of emotional conditioning I received 

as a child prepared me for a life of working-class 

jobs, the kind that require a lot of 

physical exertion and the ability to ignore pain. 

I was trained to accept harsh working conditions 

and to regard complaining as "unmanly." 

Remembering my father, the connection between 

this kind of emotional conditioning and 

the acceptance of military training becomes 

alarmingly clear. A key ingredient in creating a 

soldier is convincing men to accept that they 

must kill or be killed. Boys who are already 

divorced from their feelings about pain are ripe 

for convincing. Boys steeped in athletic discipline, 

leaving high school for boot camp, are 

ready to accept violence as a way of life, and 

complaint (read: dissent) as unmanly. 

After twenty years of denying it, what does 

acknowledging pain mean for me? In counseling 

sessions when I ask myself this question 

fear comes up immediately. Thinking becomes 

difficult. I've come up with some ideas like not 

working so hard, stopping to rest more often, 

working shorter hours, and seeking attention 

when I am hurt. I've also found counseling on 

the working-class commitment to bring heavy 

discharge. 

I know that this conditioning has touched all 

the decisions I've ever made, from the education, 

émployment, and relationships I've 

sought, to my beliefs about who I am and what 

my life purpose is. My goal now is to find out 

who I really am, and what it is that I really want 

to do. 

Neat, Clean, and Not Dramatizing 

One of the most exciting parts of the Women 

and Aging Workshop which Jane Zones led last 

October was the division into age cohort groups 

on Saturday afternoon. Most of the groups had 

women within five years of each other in age; 

some groups had a wider spread. The women at 

the workshop ranged in age from in their twenties 

to in their eighties. Jane suggested we look at concerns 

of our age group, at the historical events of 

our lives, and at how we were affected by the 

women's movement. The age cohort group meetings 

created an extra measure of safety within the 

workshop and produced informative reports for 

30 

Steve West 

Portland, Oregon, USA 

the whole group later. We got a clear sense of how 

history had affected us as women of different ages, 

as we heard the reports, group by group. 

On Sunday morning, Jane said she believed 

anyone who was neat, clean, and not showing her 

distress would look attractive. This straightforward 

statement made me feel fine about my own appearance 

afterwards. It was very helpful to hear 

those words when I did, because I'd just been 

starting to feel (at forty-three) that I wasn't as attractive 

anymore as I used to be. 

Ann Ehrman 

Berkeley, California, USA

Over the last thirteen years my primary counselor 

and I have built a powerful, deeply effective 

Co-Counseling relationship that has moved 

both of us far in leadership and in our lives. 

Many elements make it work, but one that might 

be usable for lots of other Co-Counseling pairs 

has been counseling through the mail. 

For about ten years now, this Co-Counselor 

has given me full permission to use his resource 

when we are not together by writing to him as 

client. Remembering that he loves me and that 

he will eventually read this letter, I have been 

able to write to him and cry and re-evaluate---then 

mail the letter. By now it must have been 

thousands of letter-sessions, thousands of hours 

of tears. Often they have been written between 4 

and 5 A.M., an hour when my chronic loneliness 

and terror kick up and when no counselor is 

available. Knowing that he will read the letter, 

love me, and let me love him, I have enough 

contradiction that I am not just counseling myself. 

When I write to him, I'm not alone. 

Before I say more about how this counselingon-paper 

can work, let me say a bit about the 

kind of relationship that makes it possible. Sometimes 

in counseling we are fortunate, and successful, 

in building a relationship where one 

person can offer a profound contradiction for the 

other just by loving her and receiving her love. 

Who knows exactly what allows this to happen, 

but it can be very helpful when it does. Harvey 

writes about this in The Rational Needs of Human 

Beings (See The Upward Trend): 

"It is clear that for their progress, their reemergence, 

it is important to allow your clients 

to love you. They work better, they move faster if 

they can love you, if they can believe in you, if 

they can have faith in you. It doesn't really hurt 

one in spite of the embarrassment. They need to 

love somebody, trus t somebody, believe in 

somebody, have confidence in somebody." 

COUNSELING BY MAIL 

It is important for the counselor and the client 

in this situation to remember that the client is 

powerful, strong, and worthy—and that being 

able to open up, be vulnerable, and use resource 

is a fine quality. The relationship can still be one 

of mutuality and peemess, and when the hour is 

31 

COUNSELING PRACTICE 

over and the roles switch, when the counselor 

becomes client, it can be an excellent session the 

other way around, too. 

So back to the sessions-on-paper: the deal is 

that my Co-Counselor reads the letter when he 

has time, and then throws it away. He doesn't 

ever write back, and only occasionally does he 

mention the letter. Often, though, what he has 

read shapes the way he counsels me in our next 

face-to-face session. Over the years he has encouraged 

me to write—and usually the rawer, 

the bleaker, the more revealing the letter, the 

more pleased he is. 

The efficiency of the arrangement is lovely. In 

a few minutes he can read the letter that I've 

cried into for hours. I've had the benefit of thousands 

of hours of contradiction from his love this 

way, while he has read the letters in his spare 

time. Sometimes before a session I have written a 

letter full of news and details of my life, so that 

when I get there for our limited person-to-person 

time, I can get right down to hard work instead 

of using time trying to tell him everything. 

This aspect of our Co-Counseling relationship 

is one-way, except that there's something good 

for my particular Co-Counselor about receiving 

these letters from someone who loves him. For 

whatever reason, the letters are not a burden and 

somehow help keep the relationship immediate 

for him, too. The contact is good for him. We do 

make a point, though, that the letters are for me 

as client. If I don't need to write for weeks, that's 

fine, too. 

It's important to remember this is an invited 

session; it's not just picking up a pen, clienting, 

and mailing it to someone out of the blue. The 

letter-writing happens to be workable in this relationship—and 

it is an extension of an already 

flourishing Co-Counseling relationship. It happens 

that the letter-writing is a one-way thing 

(he isn't able to write to me as client), but there 

are many other ways that I offer him resource. 

In recent years I have been writing a little less, 

or at least the letters are shorter and less tormented. 

Fewer of them are written at 4 A.M. 

continued...


because I don't wrestle with demons as much as I 

used to. In fact, I seem to be generally happier 

than before. More and more my letters are popping 

with ideas, bursting with things I want to 

tell my counselor. More and more they most of 

all offer contact with the goodness of our relationship. 

A day goes much better if I have 

started it by writing to him for twenty minutes— 

greeting him, lov ing him, complaining about 

little things that aren't just right, missing him, 

setting goals for the day, dreading the little 

things I dread. Typically I complain about how 

bad I feel and how hard things are going to be, 

seal the letter, mail it, and go on to have a fine, 

productive, enjoyable day. 

Usually before I lead a workshop, I'm up at 5 

A.M., writing my "knight in the chapel" letter to 

him—a genre we've come to know and expect. I 

use the metaphor of a knight kneeling in the 

chapel before dawn, praying for strength to do 

God's work that day. In writing these letters, we 

both k now what I ' m doing: c alling u p the 

strength that is in me, remembering the importance 

of the leadership task ahead, and remembering 

that I am not alone. 

32 

Since we worked out this letter-writing arrangement, 

my Co-Counselor has offered it successfully 

to others in perhaps similar ways. Now 

someone in my Community is beginning to write 

to me often at bedtime when she feels her loneliness. 

So much of our work in re-emergence, in 

growing leaders, and in building Communities 

depends on keeping people connected with each 

other, yet there are time and space limitations on 

how much we can offer each other. Harvey has 

for years invited people all over the world to use 

his resource by writing to him, and it has made a 

huge difference in the growth of individuals and 

Communities. But Harvey doesn't need to do all 

the work. We can offer this resource to each 

other. 

The agreement with my counselor that I can 

write to him at any time, from any place, has 

made a lot of difference for me. Maybe it could 

work for you and your Co-Counselor. 

"Heloise" 

Pennsylvania, USA 

photo by Gwen Stamp

Two and a half years ago I was 

at a workshop in England and I 

was in a support group with 

Mike Simmons. Mike asked me 

in a very joking, casual way if I 

had ever been abused by my 

mother. I answered straight 

away that this was a ridiculous 

question, and asked how he 

dared speak to me like that. Five 

minutes later, in my session, 

while I was clienting, I asked 

him whether it was sexual abuse 

for my mother to kiss me on 

certain parts of my body every 

day when I was one, two, three 

or four years of age, or whether it 

was natural for a mother to do 

that to her son. He told me in a 

very serious way that it was definitely 

sexual abuse and suggested 

that I go to an Early Sexual 

Memories support group to 

find out about it. Although I did 

not actually understand that I 

had been abused, I took his word 

very seriously because I love and 

respect this man very much. 

I decided to join an Early Sexual 

Memories (ESM) group in 

London as our Area at that time 

did not have an ESM group. I 

took a woman with me, to whom 

I had taught fundamentals in my 

class, and who had been sexually 

abused many times in the 

past. What I learned from this 

group was very valuable. Two 

things come to my mind: first, it 

helps to work very light at it; 

second, sexual distresses are like 

any other distress, and as counsellor 

you have to listen to them, 

and try to contradict them. 

For the next six months I tried 

to listen to this woman and 

contradict her distress. She 

seemed to trust me more than 

WORKING OUR WAYS OUT TOGETHER 

any other man in her life. The 

trouble was, each time J tried to 

listen I used to feel very restimulated 

from all the sexual abuse 

in her life, and I realised I had to 

cry a lot before I could even 

listen to her well. She was very 

patient with me. 

The more she trusted me, the 

more I fell in love with her. The 

more I fell in love with her the 

more I wanted to make love to 

her and the more I felt I was not a 

man because I did not make love 

to her. The more I cried with 

grief, the better contradictions I 

was giving her. I suddenly realised 

that the biggest contradiction 

of all was me, because I was 

the only man who hadn't abused 

her, although sometimes my pattern 

was acting a little oppressively 

towards her. I began to 

realise that this woman was 

making progress, and so was 

Nevertheless, there were 

things she was saying that did 

not match up to the way I could 

see she was, and I was getting 

very angry and impatient. Each 

time that I worked successfully 

on my anger and frustration, a 

huge cry of deep grief was coming 

out of me; all to do with my 

mother, with not being treated 

with respect or being listened to 

when I was very young. 

One year into counselling 

with this woman and I was becoming 

a mature man, a man 

who respected himself, who 

began to see that it wasn't his 

fault for thinking the way he had 

about women. The relief was 

enormous; the pretence and 

guilt were leaving me and more 

of me took their place within 

me. 

33 


In the meantime, as far as my 

counselling with this woman 

was concerned, i t was getting 

more realistic, more effective. I 

could see her better, I was less 

and less involved in her distresses, 

which means I was better 

able to contradict them. I 

knew that she could see her 

oppression more objectively and 

was not colluding with that, I 

also knew her pattern had weakened 

considerably because I was 

confident enough, positive 

enough and rational enough to 

offer contradictions that she 

could not refuse as client, 

One day, while she was 

clienting I said to her in a very 

trusting and confident voice, 

which showed I knew what I 

was talking about: "Isn't it like 

this, X—, isn't it because of this 

that you acted like that all these 

years?" She began to cry very 

slowly. She said, "No, no, no." I 

was insisting, my voice very 

solid. She began to sob and cry, 

and then she said, "No, no, no, it 

wasn't like that exactly..." and 

began to tell her version o f 

events. I could see how relieved 

she was. She began to talk very 

clearly for some time and she 

began to yawn for a long period 

of time. For the next three weeks 

she would yawn and yawn a lot 

while we were physically close. 

I realised the more physically 

close I was to her, the more she 

was discharging, All that was 

about a year ago. She has not 

been abused since then. Her life 

has changed drastically. 

But how about me, what effect 

has all this had on me? She 

began to see me with more love, 

more trust, and I was getting very 

irritated and angry. A lot of cold 

continued...


continued... 

perspiration was coming out of 

me. I began to see that little boy 

and what they had done to him. 

For many hours a lot of terror 

was coming out. It was unstoppable. 

I began to realise that I 

was not masturbating as frequently 

as I used to. I questioned 

why I masturbated. I began to 

see the connection between my 

isolation and masturbation. Although 

I haven't had sex for four 

years now, masturbation made 

me feel very secure. I could see 

more clearly that this act was not 

going to solve my isolation or 

the other problems in my life. 

I tried hard to stop masturbating. 

I could go for a month with- 

Think About New Babies' Digestions! 

I want to pass on my thinking about colic. I 

suspect colic is a catchall word that includes the 

varied experiences of many infants. 

My daughter was given antibiotics for twentyfour 

hours after she was born, so I wasn't surprised 

when her intestines started showing some difficulty 

processing and passing food. She pulled up 

her knees, writhed, and generally anyone holding 

her knew she was uncomfortable. She cried. We 

took her to our health care professional who suggested 

acidophilus for both her and me. (I had also 

had antibiotics.) By the second day the improvement 

was dramatic, and she has no trouble now. 

have known of two other babies who similarly 

went from lots of crying and discomfort to minimal 

crying, relaxed calm presence and no physical 

discomfort. I have also heard stories from RCers 

out it, and I felt very good about 

myself, very proud, strong and 

above all FREE. I had time to 

think about other things that I 

never had before. And finally, 

three and a half months ago, I 

realised that it had felt like masturbation 

was keeping me in a 

"safe" place. Just as safe as I feel 

now without it. The difference is 

that I don't have images in my 

brain to think of while masturbating. 

It is all too strange to do it 

with no reason. This gives me a 

lot of space to think about other 

things, such as how I was made 

to act in certain ways towards 

women and think like that about 

them. I have the space to see 

how I was victimised, how hurt I 

34 

was, and above all how I never 

wanted to play any part in sexism. 

Sexism has been very hurtful 

to me. 

Right now I feel empty, like 

something is missing. I think I 

know what it is. Otherwise, I feel 

confident; that of course has a 

big impact on my family. Things 

are going very well for me. I 

have no intention o f stopping 

working on this particular distress 

as I can see my freedom 

widen on the horizon. Discharge 

is the only dependable way to 

freedom, as Joan Karp wrote. 

T— 

England 

who relaxedly sat by while their infant cried for 

hours only to discover months later the nursing 

mother shouldn't be drinking milk, or they could 

have given acidophilus months ago. 

When K— cried from physical discomfort she 

didn't come out of it more relaxed or aware. When 

she cries for emotional discharge, she comes out 

of it significantly more contactful, relaxed and 

peaceful. I've heard i t said sometimes among 

RCers that colic is just a need to discharge. Perhaps 

in some cases this is true. In many cases, I 

suspect it is caused by inappropriate intestinal 

flora. I personally am curious about the correlation 

between mothers who eat large amounts of 

sugar (pre- and postpartum) and babies with colic. 

The sugar can cause an overgrowth of intestinal 

yeast. 

C— 

Oregon, USA


What Does It Mean To Be A "World Changer"? 

You know how things ought to be, and you care 

enough to do everything in your personal power to 

improve them. 

You choose a piece, a thread, an approach 

which touches your heart, flows from your deepest 

feelings, and you contribute to the work of 

those who have begun, or if necessary you start 

something new. You size up the situation accurately—what 

is it that needs to be done, and what 

of that can be done by you. 

Don't worry which piece you choose. Don't 

worry about which is more important—to save the 

ozone layer or rescue children from abuse. The 

metaphor of the fabric of society is useful here. 

Whichever thread you begin to pull is attached to 

all the others, and if you pull your thread steadily 

and consistently enough, seeing and making the 

appropriate connections, eventually the whole 

weak and aging fabric will unravel. If you weave 

your own thread well, you will soon be weaving a 

new and more beautiful fabric. Choose the thread 

that is your thread; don't worry if it's the most 

important thread or the most efficient thread; just 

be sure to follow it to its logical conclusion. 

So you begin to work, and you commit yourself 

to succeeding. You set big goals as well as achievable, 

concrete objectives. You put one foot in front 

of the other, slogging through the mud or dancing 

through the streets—whichever is the best you can 

do at the moment—and you simply don't stop. 

You develop yourself as a person, as re-emerged 

as possible, with your life as rich and full and personally 

satisfying as you ever dreamed of. You 

don't sacrifice a great life for world changing; they 

go together. 

Then you find that your results are directly related 

to your patterns or lack of patterns. If your 

patterns are lazy, irresponsible, hostile, pretentious, 

powerless, depressed, or dramatizing frozen 

needs, you will be disappointed in the results of 

your work in direct proportion to how much these 

patterns are in evidence. 

—Dorothy Stoneman 

International Liberation Reference Person for World Changers 

35 

If not, if you are industrious, responsible, motivated 

by love, unpretentious, confident, and giving 

rather than needing, you will be amazed and 

surprised at how successful you will be. Allies, resources, 

results, responsibility—all will flow to 

you in large quantities. 

You will be called upon to lead. You'll be given 

more and more responsibility. People will look to 

you. You'll move to the center. It's an inevitable 

process, because the world is hungry for responsible, 

relatively undistressed people with good policies 

who are willing to do the work and take the 

responsibility. You'll have a full and ever-expanding 

life, with ever more interesting challenges and 

colleagues. 

But you must make a long-term commitment, 

and keep building on what went on before. Longterm 

looks different depending on your age. I 

remember when I was twenty-eight I left a job as 

executive director of a grassroots organization 

saying, "I have been here for five years—my whole 

adult life! It's time to move on." Then a person I 

admired wrote to me saying, "Dorothy, next time 

we have to make a twenty-year commitment." 

Twenty years sounded incredible! But now that I 

have been moving on the same path for twentyseven 

years, I see the cumulative effects and I 

know that he was right. We human beings actually 

do achieve what we set out to achieve, what we 

decide to achieve, as long as we keep setting one 

foot in front of the other reasonably intelligently. 

And with the added tool of RC, success is virtually 

assured. 

It is therefore imperative that we select as our 

goals the most far-reaching, deep, uplifting, revolutionary 

goals that will produce the most universal 

benefits for humanity, and the planet Earth, and 

the universe. There is no point in choosing partial 

goals, because we will limit our success precisely 

to the extent that we limit our goals. 

In RC we have in a gripping but very general 

way, defined as our goal the elimination of all 

forms of humans harming humans. We have 

continued...


continued... 

equally generally said that building a rational society, 

free of all forms of oppression, is a correct 

and reasonable goal. 

It is, of course, the main unfinished agenda of 

humanity. it is the primary challenge before us. 

Figuring out how to organize society for the benefit 

of all its people: this is the most exciting intellectual, 

scientific, political, and human challenge 

INTUITING WHAT TO DO 

I work in a refuge for young people from fourteen to eighteen years of age and have done for the past six 

years. Over the years l have often spent time with them while they've talked about suicide and feelings of 

wanting to die. Occasionally there have been attempts at suicide, but more commonly attempts at selfmutilation 

with knives, broken glass or other sharp objects. I've always interrupted these attempts but 

never very successfully. I have stopped the behaviour but have never known how to counsel the young 

person at that time. It seemed that my thinking shut down. 

Recently we had a fourteen-year-old young woman, P—, staying with us who had a history of being 

sexually abused by her father. She didn't like me very much, l think because I reminded her a bit of her 

mother, who is my age. After dinner one night, I followed her into the kitchen. She was headed for the 

drawer and the biggest and sharpest knife in the house (not that it was very sharp). At this particular time 

the household was in chaos. I had no idea what to do but decided to stay with P— and do whatever was 

necessary to stop her hurting herself. I sat with her in the kitchen, she had the knife and was moving the 

blade backwards and forwards across her wrist. I knew it didn't make sense to try and take it from her, nor 

did I want a scenario of me chasing her around the house and involving the other residents. So l asked her 

what she was doing and if it hurt and what it might look like under the layers of skin. She looked at me as 

if I were "crazy" but said that it didn't hurt. l said, "Oh well if it doesn't hurt, do it to me," and put my 

upturned wrist next to hers. She kept saying "no" and laughing and I kept encouraging her to do it to me. 

"Why not?" l asked. The laughing continued for a while and then I started hunting round in the drawers for 

a knife so that I could do it myself. She laughed and laughed while telling me "No Jo, don't hurt yourself, 

don't kill yourself, there's no reason for you to die." After about half an hour P—'s attention came out nicely 

and she went off to watch television with the others. l went into the office and rang my Co-Counsellor and 

sobbed and shook for ten minutes. P— went to bed later quite happily and asked me to read her a story in 

bed. She cuddled up to me and we chatted for a while and she kissed me goodnight. 

Downstairs in the office was a note addressed to Jo (Mum) saying "Don't kill yourself Jo, you're too 

good. I love you. P— with hugs and kisses." l had another cry. 

All the way through this l didn't have a clue what l was doing but it was my decision to hang in with P— 

till her attention was out, and my commitment, that made that difference. She is now in a group foster home 

and doing well. We talk on the phone lots and I visit her about once a week. She's fallen madly in love with 

me and I with her. She's so smart. Her last note to me was that she'd like us to spend some time together— 

maybe the rest of our lives. l told her that was fine by me. 

36 

to be addressed. We have the great privilege of 

living at a time when the technology exists to 

figure this out; we have the challenge of living at a 

time when evolution and survival require that we 

figure it out. 

This is what it means to be a world changer. 

Belmont, Massachusetts, USA 

Jo Pert 

Suffolk Park, Hew South Wales, Australia

l was delighted and encouraged 

by Geoffrey Katz's article 

in the January 1992 Present Time 

on thinking about the environment. 

It's good that we're discharging 

and talking about this. I 

also appreciated Sue Jones' 

amended commitment: "From 

now on, I will inspire, lead, and 

organize all people to eliminate 

every form of humans harming 

ANYTHING!" 

Some years ago Harvey 

started a project o f thinking 

about what our rational human 

needs really are. We had some 

fun playing with this. It pushed 

our thinking ahead to speculate 

about what we'd be like.without 

distress. We had discussions in 

groups and sent contributions to 

Present Time about what humans 

really need versus what 

we have learned to feel we 

"need." Examples are closeness 

instead of compulsive sexuality, 

good food instead of sugar and 

fat, and so forth. 

The most fundamental, rational 

need we all share is a 

planet on which we can live. 

Indulging i n o u r patterned 

"needs" has led to a situation in 

which our most basic need is in 

great danger. 

Fortunately, this fact is being 

widely recognized and many 

people are beginning to act in 

large and small ways to interrupt 

some of the distresses which created 

this state of affairs. We will 

have to keep up the pattern interruption, 

continue to think creatively, 

and insist on sustainable 

alternatives to the present way of 

doing things. 

RECYCLE AROUND YOUR NOSE 

One thing I like about environmental 

activism is that it can 

be carried out across a spectrum 

of commitment. You can decide 

to turn off a light bulb, build a 

compost bin, ask your grocer for 

less packaging, write your legislators, 

lobby, go to a demonstration, 

lead a group, stand in front 

of bulldozers and go to jail, or 

become a full-time organizer. 

There's something everyone can 

do, and it's easily grasped. This 

gives me a sense of a broad community 

of people working together 

to be rational, even in the 

face of much irrationality. 

I have a small proposal for the 

Co-Counseling Community. My 

suggestion is that we decide to 

use only handkerchiefs or recycled 

paper tissues for our Co- 

Counsel i ng. 

We Co-Counselors use a tremendous 

amount of paper, at 

least in the United States, where 

I've done most of my Co-Counseling. 

I f you've ever done 

"beauty and order" at the end of 

a class or workshop you know 

what I mean. Multiply that by 

the thousands of counseling activities 

going on every day—all 

the sessions, classes, workshops, 

Wygelian groups, support 

groups—and we're talking significant 

tonnage. 

At the same time, i n the 

United States over one and a half 

billion trees are logged every 

year. That's seven trees for every 

child, woman, and man in the 

U.S. Most are used for paper, 

and a major portion of that is for 

throw-away paper—tissues, 

towels, and toilet paper. 

37 


Trees, like other plants, remove 

carbon dioxide from the 

air and replace it with oxygen. I 

remember learning about this in 

grade school and being delighted 

with the symmetry—animals 

use oxygen and give off 

carbon dioxide, plants use carbon 

dioxide and give off oxygen. 

It seemed so perfect, just right. 

The way things are supposed to 

be. 

However, as most of us are 

painfully aware, at the same time 

that large Alounts of carbon 

dioxide ale entering the atmosphere, 

the earth is being deforested 

at a rate so rapid it's 

hard to comprehend. I don't 

have the statistics—I've heard 

them, read them, but cannot 

seem to retain this information. 

It's so repugnant my mind spits it 

out. It's on the scale of x hundreds 

or thousands of acres per 

minute, round the clock, day after 

day. 

l live in the Pacific Northwest 

part of the U.S., not far from 

Canada. Before white people 

settled here, thousands of miles 

were covered with lush green 

forest, huge firs with trunks a 

dozen feet across or more, alders 

drinking from water-soaked 

soil, tangle-trunked vine maples, 

ferns and moss cloaking the forest 

floor. The native peoples 

lived very well here and were 

rich in food, art, stories, goods. 

Trees still grow here, but most 

are second o r third growth. 

There are tiny pockets o f old 

growth forest. I know about them 

because they're in the news as 

environmentalists fight to protect 

them from logging. But like 

continued...


continued... 

most people in this region, I have 

never seen the big trees, the old 

growth forests, except in old pictures 

from logging camps. Everyone 

here has seen these pictures, 

where ten men or more stand 

across the stump o f the tree 

they've just felled. 

We've also seen clear-cuts. 

It's impossible not to notice them 

if you go into the mountains or 

out to the Olympic Peninsula. In 

a clear-cut area, roads are built 

through the woods, every tree is 

cut down, their branches are 

stacked and burned, then rows 

of small trees are planted to be 

harvested in thirty years or so by 

machines that will go down the 

rows nipping the trees off at the 

base. The forest, with all its 

"useless" diversity of life, becomes 

a monoculture farm. 

Several years ago I had a 

friend with an airplane. As we 

flew over the states of Washington 

and Oregon, we saw mountains 

stripped bare of' forest for 

hundreds and hundreds of miles. 

It's an unforgettable sight. 

Now the same thing is happening 

to the tropical forests as 

developing countries strive to 

catch up with the model of life 

we've set in the U.S. and Europe. 

They've found markets for their 

forests—housing, lawn furniture, 

chopsticks, paper. 

Back to paper. 

As more and more people 

think about developing a sustainable 

mode of living, communities 

are focussing on recycling 

paper products. In Seattle, 

where I lived until recently, the 

city distributed bins to every 

household that wanted them a 

few years ago, and now collects 

recyclable paper and other materials 

for free. They've had some 

difficulty with finding markets 

for mixed paper, though. For a 

time they were just storing it in 

warehouses while looking for 

buyers. I haven't heard if the situation 

has changed. 

At the same time some producers 

have started making tissues, 

paper towels and toilet paper 

out of used paper. If people 

buy recycled paper products, 

there'll be a market and the trees 

won't be used. That's another 

likeable symmetry. 

Unfortunately, most of the recycled 

tissues I've seen are 

bleached white. They're pretty, 

but what the bleaching process 

does to the earth is not. In the 

U.S., papermakers use chlorine 

bleach and release the waste 

into waterways. Right now riparian 

life, including the magnificent 

salmon, is endangered in 

the Columbia River between 

Washington and Oregon because 

of paper bleaching efflu- 

38 

ent being released there. This is 

true in many other places as 

well. 

Some Swedish papermakers 

have developed a non-chlorine 

process, b u t i t hasn't been 

adopted here because the manufacturers 

don't want to spend 

money on it. 

Colored tissues are bleached 

then dyed, and the dyes contaminate 

the waterways as well. 

If you can find them, unbleached 

recycled tissues make 

more sense. If you can't, you can 

ask for them. They're kind of a 

whitish, grayish, tan. One reason 

papermakers give for continuing 

to bleach paper white is 

that people won't buy it if it isn't 

pretty and "clean" looking. Unbleached 

paper isn't especially 

attractive, but it leaves the water 

clean. Which is the rational 

need? 

If we Co-Counselors switched 

to recycled paper or handkerchiefs 

we'd have an impact. We 

are MAJOR consumers of paper 

tissues. 

Anyway, that's my pitch. I 

can't make any sense of cutting 

down trees to blow our noses. 

We need a forested planet, we 

need clean water. These are rational 

needs. 

Carla Kliskila 

Vashon Island, Washington, USA

APPRECIATING PRESENT TIME 

Thank you for your work in putting together and getting out 

Present Time. I always learn something from every issue 

and I am always touched by someone's sharing. It is wonderful 

to feel connected to people all over the world who 

have the same vision of human nature. 

611111011-_•11•vk•• 

•- 

Janie Spencer 

Ferrières, France 

My Hubby, my beloved Grandma who is 86 1/2 just spent several 

days visiting with me. I awoke Sunday morning to find her already 

awake, lying in my bed, halfway through the January 1992 Present 

Time. "This is a wonderful journal!" she exclaimed. "I could read it all 

in one sitting!" My Bubby possesses lots of good old world common 

sense, but I hadn't credited her with an abundance of available 

flexible thinking. Later, cousins visited and in our discussion someone 

mentioned the concept of "powerlessness." "That's just what 

that magazine was speaking about," piped in Bubby. Good going, 

Present Time/ Good going, Bubbyl The following day we visited Ellis 

Island, where she arrived in America with her family from Russia in 

1911. The highlight other visit was donating money to the American 

Immigrant Wall of Honor for her parents' names to be listed. The 

highlight for me was enjoying listening to her and hearing her reel off 

histories of names and relationships, and taking her around to show 

her and her incredible spunk to all my friends. l 'shop such naches" 

(derive such pride) from my Bubbyl Thank you Present Time/ 

Robin Miller 

Jerusalem, Israel 

temporarily In Brooklyn, New York, USA 

I LOVE TO RECEIVE MY SUBSCRIPTION COPY OF PRESENT TIME EVERY 

FEW MONTHS AND ALWAYS FIND THE INFORMATION EXTRAORDINAR- 

ILY RELEVANT AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING. 

SILVA BOND 

DENILKNIN, NEW SOUtti WALES, AUSTRALIA 

The new pamphlet on "mental health" system oppression is 

dynamite and truly liberating! I could read it every day like a 

mantra. 

Appreciations for wonderful Present Time, and all the other RC 

written material you put out there, i 

Judy Kay 

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA 

John Graham-Pole 

Gainesville, Florida, USA 

Here's money for my next year of Present Time. I enthusiastically 

await my next issue of Present Time with its cutting-edge thinking. It 

strengthens my courage and resolve knowing there are so many of 

us out there world-wide making a difference in such loving, intelligent, 

and powerful ways! • 

Donna Redford 

Tempe, Arizona, USA 

I very much appreciate the articles from A Better World in the 

latest present Time I find "Don't Take It Personally" useful. 

Eileen Hayes 

Columbia, Maryland, USA 

Thank you for all the work and inspiration you put into Present Time. 

It is a journal which keeps me connected to myself, others and the 

truth of living. 

MICHEL LEWIS 

OXFORD, ENGLAND 

l appreciate the good work you are doing. Present Time is full of 

useful, encouraging information. 

db 

5 

b P A Y 

'o 

Mark Cowan 

Gainesville, Florida, USA 39 

I just got January's issue of Present Time, and it's lovely. I've 

read it almost cover to cover. I particularly liked "Garibaldi's" 

article about his last sixteen years as a Gay man and Jim 

ShacIdeford's exhortation to write (will this really be the last 

time I read his words in Present Time, I wonder?). Also the 

paintings by John Fehringer and the poems on page 52 make 

it a special issue for me. Thank you for your work in producing 

it. / 

I k M a t t Fairtiough 

Edinburgh, Scotland 

Thanks for the great job you do of putting together wonderful 

Present Time. Every single page is full of ideas that excite me and get 

me thinking. Seeing and responding to other's thinking is totally 

exciting! 

I ALWAYS LOVE TO SEE PRESENT TIME IN MY MAILBOX, BECAUSE IT MEANS A 

LOVING WOK AT REALITY AND THE UPWARD TREND, BUT THE JANUARY, 1992 

ISSUE WAS PARTICULARLY OUTSTANDING FOR ME. SO MUCH APPLIED TO MY LIFE 

AND PERSONAL INTERESIS THAT I HAVE YET TO EXHAUST ITS POTENTIAL AS A 

SOURCE OF CONTRADICTIONS TO USE IN SESSIONS. So MUCH IS SO DEEP THAT I 

HAVE HAD TO READ AND REREAD ARTICLES SEVERAL TIMES. KEEP UP THE 

WONDERFUL WORK! 

LAURA GRIESEDIECK 

Can't live without Present Time. Get lots of growth from every 

issue. 

Marg Hechtlinger 

Phoenix, Arizona, USA 

MANY APPRECIATIONS FOR PRESENT TIME. IT IS AMAZING HOW SUCH AN 

EXCELLENT PUBLICATION CAN KEEP GETTING BETTER. 

SHARON HILBERER 

- • 

MINNEAYOLM, MINNESOTA, USA 

T h 

a n 

k s 

f 

o 

r 

t 

h 

e 

g 

o 

o 

d 

r 

e 

a 

d 

i 

n 

g 

. 

APRIL PRESENT TIME ROCKS. 

. • • 

xx, r a : /• 

PN1(rii/4 4 •,a, O f t ! rill ' I 

Jassy Denison 

London, England 

Sr. Loua, MEDDLED, USA 

• M a r k Boyar 

Seattle, Washington, USA 

BEN ZEMAN 

HADLEY, MA93ACHLEITITS, USA 

I have been finding the recent articles from Present Time very 

helpful. The thinking about "not taking it personally" is like 

plunging into clear, cool water. It washes away all the 

clinging debris and leaves you refreshed, invigorated and 

thinking clearly once again. 

Anne Temple 

Kingwood, Texas, USA 

The articles were excellent in the recent Present Time—the 

perspective on not taking things personally was superb! 

Joanne Bray 

Melrose, Massachusetts, USA 

In the April PRESENT TIME I especially liked "My First Black 

Liberation Workshop" by Kofi Kincaid and Sam Firth's excellent 

thinking on becoming adult. 

Joanne Bird 

Manchester, England

Speculating About What COMPLETELY Rational 

Sexuality Would Be Like For Humans 

Earlier speculating on this topic, including the article A Rational Theory of Sexuality, has been 

useful. Co-Counselors attempting to re-evaluate their way through the huge amounts of confusing 

distress that the oppressive society has placed on the subjects of sex and sexuality have reported being 

reassured and assisted in discharging by these conjectures. We have come closer to general 

agreement as to what is rational in these areas. It is noticeable that the huge preoccupation with 

sexuality-related topics which has been placed on most people in our cultures has been observably 

reduced for most Co-Counselors. 

There has come to be at least general agreement that almost all of the "guidelines" offered to us by 

the various cultures in the oppressive society have been distorted by various patterned biases. Partly 

as a result of this, a kind of a "tolerance" toward distressed sexuality has developed even in the wide 

world. This has had its good side. A great shift away from the past persecution of people for their 

"differences" is noticeable among the general public, although the old attitudes of oppression and 

mistreatment are still too dominant. Unfortunately, the improved tolerance is often accompanied by 

an "anything goes" attitude which is sometimes used as an apology and an excuse for sexist oppression 

and the sexual abuse of children. In the name of such tolerance, distressed behavior is not only 

accepted, it is treated as if it were the only choice for the person with the distress. 

Cultural conditioning has been geared to leaving most males, at least in Western cultures, with a 

compulsive drive towards, and preoccupation with, sex. On the other hand, women have been classically 

conditioned with fears, warnings, shame, ridicule, and embarrassment to be inhibited in the 

area of sex. Attempts have been made, by sections of the women's movement, to correct this obviously 

disadvantaging position, but they have often been geared to attempted imitation of the male 

patterns rather than toward revealing and discovering the actual inherent nature of human females in 

the area. 

I have counseled a large number of individuals of both genders during all stages of the "sexual 

revolution," from 1950 to the present. In the process I think I have had some opportunity to glimpse 

what rational sexual functioning would be like if we could all become free from patterns in this area. 

It seems clear to me that rational sexual initiative and responsibility lies inherently with human females. 

I think a rational population of both genders would quickly come to agreement on this. The basic 

motivation for sex is reproduction, for producing new human individuals, for guaranteeing the 

survival of the human race. Undistressed women inherently are deeply aware of this responsibility. 

Women's bodies furnish the ambience, the care, and the nourishment which make it possible for a 

fertilized ovum to become a human. Women are thoroughly committed to and in charge of the process 

as much as anyone except the fetus itself can be. Women naturally nurse the newborn child, provide 

an overwhelmingly large share of the crucial early care, and are set up to become a mentor, 

nurturer, counselor, and emotional supporter for the child most of the way to his or her adulthood. 

Without any false information or distress patterns about sex, I think a well-informed woman 

would be free from any pulls, patterned or otherwise, to participate in sex except when the natural 

functioning of her body would signal her of the opportunity for reproduction. I suspect that a male human, 

free of patterns and conditioning, would, in a similar way, be uninterested in sex except upon receiving 

a signal from his female partner. (This seems to be true for other mammals and indeed for many 

other forms of life.) 

Illak v 

lirr 

40

My guess is that a rational woman free of patterns would be taking delight and pleasure in a great 

range of activities that have nothing to do with sex until the actual time of ovulation. Then the internal 

hormone shift would trigger an ancient inherited set of feelings of desiring sex. I think at such a 

moment the rational woman of the future would enjoy such a shift in feelings, feel reassured that her 

beautiful, complex body is working well, and would: (a) enjoy the feelings accompanying the 

change of hormonal state but not let that interfere in any way with the high priority activities in 

which she is engaged; or (b) decide, based on past thinking and re-evaluation at the present moment, 

that it is time to prepare for pregnancy by having uncontracepted sex; or (c) decide to carefully 

employ contraception to enjoy the recreational experience of helping and being helped to take 

pleasure in the feelings of sex and climax with someone whom she loves. 

I think such a rational woman, having decided then or previously on who is the sexual partner of 

her choice, will inform such a partner of her desire, and that this, coming as the unprovoked choice of 

his female partner, will in itself be the stimulus that "turns on" his interest, in either sex which leads 

to a pregnancy, or to recreational sex. 

I suspect that once ovulation has finished, whether it has led to conception or not, the resulting 

hormone shift would return the attention of the woman to other affairs, whether these affairs are her 

usual adventures and preoccupations alone, or whether they now include these and the preparation 

for a thoroughly successful pregnancy. 

In this happy kind of environment the present calibre of most advertising would look completely 

ridiculous. It would be ineffective in selling people the goods they don't want in the hope for meeting 

frozen needs that can never be met. 

I think children would know all about sex and could talk about it in simple language as soon as 

they bothered to ask questions. 

I think that in the rational future there will be a great deal of touching and closeness between 

adults but only rarely, under the circumstances described above, will it lead to any sexual feelings or 

activity. 

I think it will be very easy to arrange for zero population growth for our crowded world. This will 

be especially true when permission to have children will require graduation from courses involving 

the review and discharge of the distress from one's own childhood. I think commitments will be 

required of adults (who are seeking permission to become parents) that their planned one or two 

children have the prospect of being members of an organized group of close and friendly buddies 

with whom they play and learn all day. We have seen glimpses of the possibility of such arrangements 

in the kibbutzim of Israel, the progressive "creches" begun in the early years of the Soviet 

republics, and in the, happy preschools and primary grades of China in the early years following the 

Chinese liberation of 1949. 

41 

—Harvey Jac/tins

LIBERATION 

o 

This is a handout I've used 

in a group I lead at my church. 

MOVING 13OLDLY ON BASIC k)SCIES' 

Victor Nicassio 

Los Angeles, California, USA 

Building Catholic- 

JewLh Unity 

"In its Declaration o n the 

Relationship of the Church to 

Non-Christian Religions o f 

1965, t h e Sec ond Vatic an 

Council is s ued a n his tor ic 

statement o n the Jews and 

summoned a ll Catholic s t o 

reappraise their attitude toward 

and relationship with the 

Jewish people.... T he council's 

call is an acknowledgement 

of the conflicts and tensions 

t h a t hav e s eparated 

Christians and Jews through 

the c entur ies a n d o f t h e 

Church's determination, as far 

as possible, to eliminate them. 

It serves both in word and action 

as a recognition o f the 

manifold sufferings and injustices 

inflicted upon the Jewish 

people b y Christians in our 

own times as well as in the 

past. It speaks from the highest 

level of the Church's authority 

to serve notice that injustices 

directed against the 

Jews a t any time fr om any 

source c a n nev er r ec eiv e 

Catholic sanction or support." 

—Secretariat for Catholic- 

Jewish Relations 

National Conference of Catholic 

Bishops 

OUR BASIC RELATIONSHIP 

*Catholics and Jews have 

an inherent human relation- 

ship characterized by affection, 

cooperation and communication 

(as do all human beings). 

Hurts and misunderstandings 

do not change this 

underlying reality. 

"Catholics and Jews als o 

share a profound cultural heritage 

that goes back thousands 

of year, as well as similar principles 

and goals for justice. 

'Catholics and Jews have 

much mor e in c ommon as 

human beings than we have 

differences. 

ELIMINATING ANTI-JEWISH 

OPPRESSION 

"One of the key obstacles 

to Catholic-Jewish unity is 

anti-Jewish oppression which 

is pervasive in our society and 

too often influences our attitudes 

and actions as Catholics. 

'Many Catholics in the past 

and present have stood u p 

against t h e oppres s ion o f 

Jews. We can take pride and 

inspiration fr om their examples. 

At the same time, there 

have been many instances in 

which Catholics have cooperated 

with the oppression o f 

Jews. Almos t all of us have 

grown up hearing anti-Jewish 

sentiments and misinformation 

about Jews expressed, 

often by other Catholics. We 

42 

are all called to eliminate this 

form of injustice, both personally 

and as a church. 

"Anti-Jewish oppression is 

used to confuse and divide the 

population and distract attention 

from the true sources of 

oppression in society which 

are ec onomic . T his scapegoating 

mechanism of blaming 

and resenting Jews is one 

of the k ey ways the oppressive 

society attempts to escape 

blame itself and survive 

during troubled times. 

'By refusing to accept anti- 

Jewish attitudes and actions, 

we refuse to be divided as oppressed 

people and strengthen 

our work for justice. In this 

way, eliminating anti-Jewish 

oppression is in our own best 

interests, as well as that o f 

Jews. 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUS- 

SION 

*What ar e y o u r ear lies t 

memories of Jews or hearing 

about Jews? 

'How hav e y ou stood u p 

against t h e oppr es s ion o f 

Jews? 

*Where d o y ou get c onfused? 

• •

I want to talk about how to 

use RC in working-class liberation, 

or how to get workingclass 

people into RC, or how to 

get RC to working-class people. 

I like the last way of looking 

at it best, because our real goal 

is to get the tools of RC to working-class 

people. We know that 

this information is useful. It can 

improve people's thinking, and 

this will enhance our chances of 

survival, and o u r friends' 

chances. 

I want to emphasize that this 

is my thinking. This is what I've 

been able to figure out about 

this. But I always carry this sign 

with me ("Trust Your Own 

Thinking") because it's really 

your thinking about your situation 

and the people you know, 

what you can figure out and 

what you know from your own 

experience, that matters. 

As we look around here, 

there's a tremendous wealth of 

experience. It's just the nature 

of our lives as working-class 

people that we reach out into 

many corners of the globe. We 

touch many people, many activities 

that people are involved 

in, and there's tremendous 

power there. I don't have the 

knowledge that you do about 

your particular corner of the 

world. You're the expert on 

that, you have a perspective, 

knowledge and experience, 

and a vantage point that nobody 

else has. There's tremendous 

potential for power in 

your deciding to use this posi- 

tion that you have to make the 

kind of changes that need to be 

made. 

So I'm going to tell you my 

thoughts about how to organize 

and you can steal any of 

them that you want, and improve 

on them, or discard them. 

It seems to be helpful to people 

to hear some of it, and to see 

some of what I've found is possible. 

The best organizer I know is 

the person I'm married to. I get 

a good lesson from her almost 

daily about how to be a good 

organizer, if I choose to ask her 

what her day is like. She's incredible. 

Her name is Beth. She 

has the fortunate ability, as a 

habitual way o f being, that 

when she's talking to you, you 

feel like you're the only person 

on earth at that moment, that 

her attention is completely on 

you, that she's eager to see you, 

to hear everything you have to 

say, to know how things are 

with you. 

She was raised i n a rural 

working-class family in a town 

where there were a l o t o f 

wealthy people and summer 

people. Her father was a contractor, 

and the family was 

raised to be very gracious to 

people because they often 

worked with these wealthy 

people, or clients in the town. 

They had to treat everybody 

well and with respect as kind of 

a family thing, as part of their 

business. Also I think that this 

was part of their working-class 

43 

LIBERATION 

LEADING IS JUST A JOB YOU LEARN HOW TO DO 

—Dan Nickerson 

From a talk at the West Coast LISA Working-Class Workshop 

cultural heritage. There were 

some Native American roots 

also. There was a habitual generosity 

and graciousness towards 

people that their family 

just had. Anybody was welcome. 

You'd just come in touch 

with them and you'd feel welcome. 

They gather people 

around them. It's very nice. 

And it's made Beth a great organizer 

because she carries this 

everywhere and it's such a 

breath of fresh air for people. 

She works as a clerk in the 

library—a seemingly insignificant 

job—and it's the most incredible 

thing. This library is in 

a town of about 6,000 people. It 

has the circulation of a library 

of a town four times its size. 

They turn out four times the 

books that they should be turning 

out for a library their size. 

They do many things right. 

One thing that Beth does is 

the toddler story hours. When 

she started at the library, they 

had about twenty people who 

would come, parents with their 

children. Then Beth started 

doing it. She learned all the 

children's names right away. 

(She always does that. She 

knows every child's name who 

comes in there.) They have milk 

and cookies. And she sits down 

and takes out a story and they 

read the story. Then the parents, 

of course tremendously 

isolated, having spent all day 

trying to keep up with these 

toddlers, get to have a parents' 

support group. And they talk to 

each other. The story hour has 

continued...

LIBERATION 

continued... 

grown fr om one meeting of 

about twenty children a week, 

to three meetings with close to 

sixty young people and maybe 

100 to 120 parents that come in. 

And this is just Beth. That's all it 

is. 

In these economic times , 

when everybody's all shaky 

about being out of work or not 

having a job, people walk in 

and offer Beth jobs as a regular 

thing. She got one job a while 

ago as a market research assistant, 

and who knew anything 

about that? But this guy walked 

in and started talking to her and 

Beth turned her usual attention 

on him, and after a while it just 

sort o f occurred to him—he 

needed a person like that. It came 

to him out of the blue. So he offered 

her a job. She took a parttime 

job with him for a while 

and made enough money doing 

this on the side to get her pilot's 

license. 

She has this ability as a habitual 

thing. I 

o(lots n of laughter). You get the 

tmessage, h e I think . I was not 

raised in like manner. It turned 

oout t that h eI 

became withdrawn 

r and suspicious and generally 

hdis trus a ntful 

o f contact w it h 

d people. . . But I decided at one 

. point to take on this task of organizing 

the working class. I 

read an artic le that Harvey 

wrote on "You can build your 

own world community starting 

now. Precise instructions inc 

luded." W h a t h e says i n 

there—which is what Beth does 

and it's true—is that the single 

most effective thing you can do 

as an organizer is to give up 

preoccupation w i t h getting 

good sessions and instead become 

preoccupied with giving 

good sessions. 

Beth does this as a habitual, 

cultural thing. For me, it's taken 

a lot of effort, what we call the 

reiterative decision. I've had to 

make it a habit, re-dedicate myself 

to it over and over again, 

many times a day. But we can 

make habits as well as break 

them. 

That's the first thing as an 

organizer. From there on things 

start to happen pretty quickly 

around you. People will start 

seeking you out and seeking 

your advice and presenting you 

with problems they haven't 

solved. Or they will begin sobbing 

on your shoulder all of a 

sudden one day. When this 

happens you tr y to maintain 

your composure while remembering 

what you know about 

Co-Counseling. 

' 

I would like to propose that 

all of us here who are seriously 

interested in organizing, take 

this pledge: (workshop repeats 

after Dan) "I promise that from 

this moment on I will give up 

my preoccupation with getting 

good sessions (lots of laughter). 

And ins tead I w i l l become 

preoccupied with giving good 

sessions." I've noticed that we 

have to keep practicing this 

(laughter). Your patterns always 

will want to take over and drive 

your head into the muck again. 

44 

So once you do this, what do 

you do? You use the tools of 

RC. I want to describe what 

these tools are (we call them the 

organizational forms of RC), 

that we have available to us. 

They are: the session, the support 

group, the Wygelian leaders' 

group, and the class. 

I liked Harvey's description 

of what a naturalized Co-Counseling 

session is, a session that 

you can do anywhere. It's this 

thing that Beth does, which is 

paying attention to a person in 

a way that enhances their survival. 

Pretty simple definition. 

There's no limit to when you 

can do this. For instance, I'm 

running into work, I'm late, I 

want to make sure I hit the 

punch clock on time, but as I'm 

coming in, I see the security 

guard by the door, and I remember 

a conversation that we 

had the other day, that he was 

trying to get a piece welded on 

his truck or something. And so 

as I ' m z ipping by, try ing to 

hurry up to the time clock, instead 

o f being preoccupied 

with my own distress about 

being late, I take advantage of 

the minute that I have going by 

and say "Hey, how you doing?" 

And the guy looks around. I 

say, " D id y ou get that part 

welded onto y our truck the 

other day?" I'm still zipping by. 

And he says "Oh, yeah N o , I 

(blah, blah). . " While I'm 

headed down to the time clock, 

he's still telling me about some 

part of that. His day has gotten 

better through that kind of contact. 

It's enhanced his chances 

of survival. He will be able to 

think better having had that 

much contact, that much attention, 

and having that isolation 

that we a ll fall into contra-

dicted. And my day will go better, 

too. It's harder for me to see, 

of course but — (laughter). 

Let's say I have potential 

contact with 250 people in a 

day. What I've done over a period 

of time, when I can remember 

to do it, is to think, "How 

many people can I make contact 

with today in that way?" 

I think the biggest thing getting 

in our way as workingclass 

people is thinking that we 

are basically insignificant, that 

we can't do anything, that we 

don't matter, and all that. That's 

some of what we're up against. 

But if you think about it, we all 

know in the work situations 

that we've been in, how much 

difference one person can make 

on a job. Often there'll be one 

person who just has that way, 

who when they don't come into 

work, you notice that things 

don't have quite the same zip. 

One person can inject a little 

zing into something. I think if 

you really apply i t logically, 

you have to realize that we all 

have this ability. This idea we 

have that we're not significant 

is junk that we've had dumped 

on us. No matter how embarrassed 

we are, how clunky we 

feel or how stupid or anything, 

we still have this ability. We are 

important to people. 

People are watching us all 

the time. Anywhere you go in a 

factory or work situation, people 

are always aware and looking 

out for something interesting 

to make things go better. 

People are ready for us. It's just 

a matter of deciding to do it, 

deciding to do it, deciding to do 

it, and discharging on your feelings 

about it as you go. 

It can be embarrassing. I 

fought that for a long time, to 

just be that important to someone. 

I'd go up to someone's 

bench and talk to them, and 

then listen, intentionally. And 

then I'd find myself getting 

embarrassed, standing there, 

realizing that I was visibly caring 

about somebody. But you 

know what to do with that . . 

(laughter). I nailed my shoes to 

the floor, let the sweat roll 

down my spine, and listened. 

That's a session. 

A support group is another 

form that we can use. A support 

group is creating a situation 

where everyone gets listened 

to without interruption. 

That's pretty simple, too. You 

can do that anywhere that 

you're with people. I have a 

little group—we eat lunch together 

every day at a table in 

the cafeteria. A t first, people 

don't listen too well. Everyone 

is trying to say something and 

nobody listens. But I've found 

that it can make a huge difference 

just to direct my attention 

to each person while they're 

talking. After a while, people 

find it so much more interesting 

talking while being listened to 

than talking when no one's listening, 

that people end up waiting 

to be listened to. Also, 

people begin to do that more 

with each other. So we have a 

very nice group that meets at 

lunch time. 

45 

LIBERATION 

This happens to some degree 

all the time anyway without 

consciously structuring it. Inherently 

we're intelligent. It's 

in our nature to seek out cooperation. 

I'm sure you've all had 

groups from time to time in the 

wide world that function that 

way. A bunch of people get together 

at break, or go bowling 

Saturday night or something, 

and just have a great time talk-: 

ing and whatever. So that's one 

example of a support group. 

Another hand-sewer I taught 

Co-Counseling to, who worked 

at the other end of the conveyor 

belt from me, developed a little 

more overt approach. On Friday 

afternoons she'd say, "Hey, 

Paul, what are you doing this 

weekend?" And Paul would 

talk about what he was going to 

do this weekend. Then she'd 

turn to the guy across the belt 

and say, "Hey, so-and-so, what 

are you going to do this weekend?" 

And that person would 

talk. Then she'd keep asking 

people. She did this for a number 

of weeks, and after a while 

people got into it. It became a 

regular thing. Friday afternoons 

at about 2:00, everybody 

would wait for Cynthia to ask 

them, "Hey, Bruce, what are 

you going to do this weekend?" 

So, it was great. Then one day, 

of course, she forgot (like all of 

us), forgot her commitment 

about not being preoccupied 

with her distress. She was 

working away, and it got to be 

2:00 or so. Finally this other guy 

couldn't contain himself any 

longer and he said, "Cynthia, 

when are you going to ask us 

what we're going to do this 

weekend?" (laughter) Gradually 

they got into doing it. Every 

Friday at around 2:00, someone 

would haul their attention out 

continued...

LIBERATION 

continued... 

for a minute and ask someone 

else, "What are you going to do 

this weekend?" and on it went. 

It was neat. 

Now for all the skeptics in 

the crowd who might doubt 

that this kind of thing will really 

accomplish anything, I want 

to tell some success stories. 

I've worked there twelve 

years, a long time against a lot 

of discouragement, not really 

being able to tell whether anything 

was happening. I think 

there's something challenging 

about doing working-class liberation 

work this way. I don't 

have any title, right? I'm not the 

director of human relations for 

a major corporation—although 

I am (laughter). But I don't have 

that title. I have no desk or chart 

or anything to prove that I'm 

doing my job. This puts you 

constantly up against your own 

feelings of doubt or discouragement 

about whether you're accomplishing 

anything or not. 

And it's very hard to tell because 

it's a stressful environment, 

and there's a lot of stuff 

going on. Some other time I'll 

talk about strategies for handling 

discouragement. But, 

needless to say I did combat 

that and kept going. 

What I saw happening over a 

period of time is that the kind of 

isolation that people experience 

at work, where everyone just 

gets numb, that i t changed. 

People talked, there was an exchange. 

People were interacting 

all the time. All kinds of fun 

and w i l d things happened; 

something was always going 

on. There's an openness now, a 

break in the isolation. When we 

get this going good, people 

think better, and act. 

I talked before about how, as 

society collapses, we need to set 

up the structures now, within 

the collapsing society, that will 

be there to replace what collapses. 

Don't wait till the crisis 

hits to set up your support 

groups—do i t n o w w h i l e 

there's some relative slack. 

Then when all hell breaks loose, 

you'll have the means of dealing 

with i t already in place. 

Well that's what I was doing. 

When times were relatively 

good, like when there was easy 

time on Friday afternoons, 

Cynthia and I were setting up 

these relationships and organizational 

forms. 

There was one incident when 

I saw clearly that this had 

worked. Out of the fifty handsewers, 

we had seven or eight 

people who had been injured 

and were out on worker's compensation. 

Some of them were 

coming back to work, working 

on a limited basis, and they 

were receiving compensation 

payments while they worked. 

One day, the company called 

them all in and said, "It appears 

that we made a mistake here 

and that we've overpaid you 

your compensation benefits for 

about a year and a half now. 

And you, in fact, owe us this 

amount of money. However, if 

you sign off your compensation 

claims, we'll just overlook that, 

and we'll all go back to work." 

Well, there was a togetherness 

about people in the meeting. 

They were in a unit. It was clear, 

it was the management over 

here and the hand-sewers over 

there. And they all said "No." 

Naturally. After they came out, 

there were sessions all up and 

down the belt, w i th l i ttl e 

groups of people talking. You 

could see them form every time 

46 

a person came out. People 

would gather around, talking, 

listening, discharging. So it was 

cool. 

A few days went by, and the 

management still thought that 

they hadn't been defeated. 

They had a little more left in 

them. So they called people in 

again. Only this time they 

called people in one at a time 

and kind of put the pressure on 

them. For each person they had 

a print-out showing exactly 

how much you had been overpaid— 

which amounted to substantial 

sums o f money, like 

$1200 or $1600, which you and I 

don't have lying around. People 

said, 'What if I don't pay 

this?" They said, "Well, we 

could take you to court." We 

heard after people came back 

from the meetings, that every 

person said, "No, we will not 

sign off." Well, there was nothing 

management could do, and 

that was the end of it. That was 

about a year and a half ago, and 

these people are still on compensation 

and still getting the 

pay they got when they were 

injured. So, hey, a victory. 

I think the work we did had a 

lot to do with it. If this had been 

a place where people just work, 

where people are isolated, this 

kind of thing wouldn't have 

happened. It would have been 

easier to single people out. 

People being scared and confused, 

with no one to talk to, 

might have decided i t would 

have been in their best interests 

to get the company off their 

back. 

-%71/1111.10

This sounds very simple to 

say when you get a little success 

story, but this represents 

years of work. There was a lot 

of work that happened and a lot 

of me contradicting our feelings 

of hopelessness and my own. It 

was nice to have Cynthia in on 

it, to have us both thinking this 

way about the situation. We 

used to have a little hand-sewers 

Wygelian leaders' group 

that met in our RC Community, 

where Cynthia and I would get 

together and jus t plot, plot, 

plot. 

The next organizational form 

that comes down the line is the 

Wygelian leaders' group. A 

Wygelian leaders' group is a 

place for people who are leading 

to be listened to while they 

think about their leading. It's 

that simple. It's based on the 

idea that every person who's 

leading has a need to be listened 

to about what that's like 

for them, what kinds of problems 

they run into, and how 

they're going t o cope w it h 

them. 

I have a good example of this 

at work. I have this thing about 

using the society's rigidities 

against it. Corporations and 

organizations are v ery r igid 

and they seem to have these 

unique little things, but once 

you get to know them, they're 

always the same. There are no 

surprises. They always function 

the same way. Once you 

figure out what the ropes are, 

you can bend them around and 

use them for your own ends. 

You figure, well, this is the way 

they're g o in g t o s tr uc tur e 

things. H o w can I use that 

structure t o benefi t w h a t I 

want? 

One strategy that corporations 

have adopted, as capitalism 

collapses, is getting rid of 

the white-collar workers. Since 

the white-collar workers don't 

produce anything, they're overhead. 

The company can't fire 

the produc tion workers because 

they need the production, 

but they can get rid of whitecollar 

workers, so they started 

doing that at our factory. 

Well, that left a lot of little 

jobs undone. So one t h in g 

they've been doing is what they 

call " employ ee empow er - 

ment." Basically, the idea is to 

get the workers to take over 

some of the job functions that 

were performed by these whitecollar 

workers. Yo u k now, 

never before in a shoe shop has 

anyone ever gotten any of the 

production workers together 

and asked them what they 

thought about anything. Now 

here they are getting these committees 

of workers together to 

deal with this situation and that 

situation and all of this. 

And I thought, probably a lot 

of this is really stupid but how 

can we use this? There's not 

much of an opportunity for a 

blue-collar person to talk and 

think in front of groups. Here it 

is. Get your friends in there on 

these committees, your friends. 

They get o n a c ommittee, 

they're confronted with having 

to talk and think with management 

and other people. 

Then when they come out, you 

give them sessions on what that 

was lik e and listen to them. 

That's how I saw using these 

committees. It's a great opportunity 

t o v alidate people's 

thinking, to have them thinking 

about what's really going on in 

these meetings , w h a t t h e 

47 

LIBERATION 

worker's viewpoint is as opposed 

t o the management's 

viewpoint (if it is opposed). So 

as these committees formed, 

that's one of the things Cynthia 

and I w o u ld do. We ' d get 

people to take part. 

I later found out that we had 

a great influence there. My exsupervisor 

told me, "I learned a 

lot from you and Cynthia during 

those meetings that w e 

had." I asked him what, and he 

said, "I learned that it was possible 

to value anyone's viewpoint, 

to listen to people with 

respect. In those meetings, you 

and her both, no matter what 

anybody had to say, y ou listened 

to it, you'd respect them." 

And we would do that. I saw 

that as our role, because I knew 

management wouldn't look out 

for us and see that anyone got 

heard, so I would. A lot of 

people express themselves with 

anger o r frustration and the 

management tends to react to 

that. As I said last night, we 

tend to react to those patterns in 

working-class people and not 

really respect what the person 

is saying or trying to say. It was 

neat to hear that from him because 

it confirmed that what I 

was tr y ing to do really d id 

work. The committees became 

a great vehicle to use to encourage 

people to take on some 

leadership, then counsel them 

and listen to them about the 

leadership that they took on. 

continued...

LIBERATION 

continued... 

Here's my best success story 

with that. The company had 

stretch breaks ins tituted at 

work to combat overuse syndrome. 

It started costing them a 

lot of money in worker's compensation, 

so they decided it 

was time to do something about 

it. They had to go out and get 

workers on the floor to lead 

stretch breaks. Well, most of the 

hand-sewers are men. A lot of 

the rest of the departments, like 

stitchers, are women. But most 

of the hand-sewers are men, 

and there's no way in the world 

that these guys are going to get 

really excited about doing these 

flitty little exercises. There's a 

lot o f embarrassment. It's a 

pretty foreign thing for most of 

these people. But they picked 

the right guy. 

They picked a guy who was a 

real guy's guy, a loud guy. He 

became t h e s tr etc h br eak 

leader, and he was great. He 

ran it sort of like an Army boot 

camp. He yelled at people. He 

always started the breaks with, 

"Fall out!" And he'd get these 

guys laughing. His crowning 

achievement was with one exercise 

where you're supposed 

to put your hands together and 

push, then pull out with a little 

tension. Well, he turned this 

into sex. He'd go, "Pu—sh" and 

"Pu—II" and got everybody 

just discharging embarrassment. 

Sure enough, pretty soon 

most of the hand-sewers, these 

big bur ly guys, were doing 

these exercises and really liking 

it. A lot of them have come to 

like it and see that's it's good 

for them, and get over that embarrassment. 

Well, one day he was five 

minutes late for work. He had 

polio when he was young, so 

it's hard for him to get around. 

He walks a little bit slower than 

the rest of us. So he was five 

minutes late for work, and the 

supervisor w r ote h i m u p , 

which I wasn't aware of at the 

time. It came stretch break that 

day, and he comes back and 

throws the exercise break stuff 

on my bench and says, "Dan, 

you're leading them today." So 

I asked him why. And he says, 

"(upset, angry noises)." So he 

quit. Well, there was nothing I 

could do. I took over leading 

the exercises right then, and we 

finished them. 

Later I went ov er t o his 

bench. (I have work I can do, 

threading my needles, at another 

person's bench.) I went 

over and sat there and threaded 

my needles , a n d h e goes, 

"What?! What?!" I said, "Well, 

about your not doing the exercises 

anymore. H e says, 

"(more upset, angry noises). I 

just kept sitting there. Then he 

says, "What?! What?! I know 

what y ou'r e think ing! Yo u 

want me to lead those blank, 

blank exercises." I said, "No. . " 

and he started all over with 

"(more upset, angry noises)." 

We went through several cycles 

of that. Finally I decided that he 

was at a point where he'd had 

enough o f that, enough discharge, 

where he really wanted 

to hear what I had to say, and I 

couldn't hold out any longer. 

48 

This takes us to the next organizational 

form that we have, 

which is a class. A class is where 

you give a piece of theory—our 

best guess at what reality is. 

You put that out, then allow 

people to think and discharge 

about it. I realized he'd done 

some discharging and it was 

time for some theory. So I said, 

"Well, you know, buddy, I'm 

not trying to tell you what to 

do. I k now you got the shaft 

here. It wasn't fair. But what I 

see going on is that a lot of us 

stick our necks out and take 

some leadership or take some 

kind of role here. And, inevitably, 

what happens is the management 

does something stupid 

to interfere with it, and it 

pisses us off, and we get pissed 

off and we quit. It's the only 

way we think we have of dealing 

with this. I think it hurts us. 

We lose a lot of good people 

that way. You're a real good 

stretch break leader. You're just 

good at it. You get the guys 

going, y ou know what to do. 

I'm not saying you should do 

this or you have to do it or anything. 

But that's just what I 

think about it." Then I went 

back to my bench. We worked 

the rest of the day, and I led the 

stretch breaks. 

The next morning I came into 

work, and he comes striding up 

to me and says, "Hey, guess 

what? I went down and talked 

to the person who runs the 

stretch breaks. She called the 

supervisor. He called me into 

his office and apologized to me 

for twenty minutes. He wrote it 

down, a written apology. It's 

going into my record that I've 

been doing this thing. And I'm 

going to lead the stretch breaks 

from now on."

That was a great victory. It's 

a little thing, but I think that's 

the way a lot of us lose our 

power as workers, through 

these little things. It's the little 

things that sort of drag you 

down. Pick, pick, pick. Not getting 

respected and not getting 

to keep what you've figured 

out to make good for yourself at 

work. 

That's the leaders' group— 

listening to a person think 

about their leading, particularly 

when they run into a problem. 

And that's the way we'd 

do it at work. We'd have these 

whenever people ran into problems. 

We'd get in there and give 

them some assistance. 

There's another story about 

something that came out of an 

"RC class" at work. Before the 

company started laying o ff 

white-collar workers, there was 

a period where they had lots of 

money to throw around at 

problems. They hired lots of 

white-collar "experts" to study 

and measure and analyze every 

little thing around the shop. 

This got more and more demoralizing. 

Production workers 

had more and more of their jobs 

interfered with by these various 

white-collar initiatives. Our 

jobs got harder and our pay got 

lower as work standards were 

increased, new practices required 

of us, and so on. 

One day at my lunch table, 

people were getting really 

down, talking about the impact 

of the "experts" on them, and I 

decided I had to contradict 

some of this powerlessness. I 

gave some rather hotly expressed, 

off-the-cuff, workingclass 

theory. Something like, 

"Well, that's the way they are 

trained—sent to college, filled 

full of horseshit, and told that 

they are the only intelligent 

people in the world. Then they 

come out here, are given a clipboard 

and allowed to wear a 

necktie and tell us what to do. 

You'll go 'crazy' if you start believing 

the 'neckties' know 

more than you do." Well, people 

laughed at the nickname, 

and things lightened up a bit. 

I didn't realize how this idea 

had caught on. At the time, I 

was a lot more isolated than I 

am now and often was the last 

one to hear a hot piece of shop 

gossip or whatever. This was 

on a Monday or a Tuesday, and 

apparently somehow this notion 

of "the neckties" travelled 

without my knowing about it. 

On Friday (payday) when I 

came in, all fifty hand-sewers 

aside from about three of us 

wore dress shirts and neckties. 

The few women in the department 

wore high heels, stockings, 

earrings, and pantsuits or 

dresses or whatever. 

There w e w ere a t o u r 

benches, sewing away as usual. 

It was great throughout the day 

to watch the faces of the whitecollar 

workers who came into 

the room. I remember one supervisor 

who got about halfway 

through the department 

before he realized something 

was different. First a grin 

49 

LIBERATION 

started across his face, and then 

I loved watching his face as it 

occurred to him that maybe this 

was not supposed to be funny 

(from a management point of 

view). Maybe the revolution 

had come. It was a great day, 

and I must admit it contradicted 

some of my internalized oppression. 

People looked really 

great. We all got a little outside 

of the demeaning effect that the 

oppression had had on us. 

So you see, once you start 

doing this stuff, it can kind of 

take off on you. 

So that's what I've figured 

out. 

Question: This idea of going out 

into the world and putting our attention 

on people is wonderful. 

However, I think there's another 

piece which is about building relationships 

of equality, about modeling 

peerness and allowing other 

people to see where we are and 

where we hurt, which is not about 

desperately seeking a good session, 

but about closeness and being 

human. And I'd like to hear you 

say a few words about that. 

Yeah, you're right. I think 

especially with blue-collar and 

pink-collar people, we've been 

sold bills o f goods so many 

times, and bullshitted so many 

times, that i f you don't put 

yourself out, you won't get 

through. It really helps to show 

some of yourself when you're 

getting to know somebody else. 

You've got to be willing to stick 

your neck out. If you're sitting 

behind a wall of reserve all the 

time and trying to be cutesy and 

help the poor suffering masses, 

people aren't going to go for 

that. That's been a struggle for 

me at the shop. continued...

LIBERATION 

continued... 

A couple of guys decided a 

few years ago that they were 

going to make a man out of me. 

One of the things they had noticed 

I wasn't able to do too well 

was to stick my neck out with 

an idea, stick up for it, and get 

hammered for it. So they forced 

me repeatedly to stick up for 

myself and hammered me for it 

until I got good at it. It became 

our odd little way of having fun 

at work. 

One day this guy was beating 

me down on something. He 

went on and on and on, and I 

didn't realize that I was kind of 

sinking. I just sat there threading 

my needles. Finally he says 

to me, "Well, aren't you going 

to say anything?" I said, "Oh, I 

don't know, C--. I think you 

kind of beat me down on this 

one." So he says, "Well, take a 

minute." (lots of laughter) So I 

did. I rallied a little, put out a 

few ideas, and he hammered 

me again. 

So it does work out. I read a 

little thing once in Present Time 

that someone wrote in, just a 

little phrase, that said, 'When 

fishing for people, use yourself 

as bait." It's hard to live up to, 

but it's part of the picture. 

Question: Would you say something 

about dealing with discouragement? 

Well, I think one thing is to 

be smart about it, to not be 

naive about tak ing on a big 

challenge lik e leading t h e 

working class. In a way I think 

you're better off taking on the 

biggest challenge you can, because 

that will put you quicker 

up against what's in your way. 

You might as well go for the 

whole wor k ing class rather 

than settle for a chunk of it, because 

I think you quickly see 

what comes up, and the obstacles 

are clearer. I think some 

people run on idealism, which 

is not a bad thing, and take 

things on and then get hit. You 

just don't realize when y ou 

start out to do something how 

much is involved. You've got to 

have the decision, the grit, to 

keep going. 

When I started at the shop, I 

went in with my eyes open. I'd 

counseled enough on my early 

working-class stuff to know a 

lot of the discouragement, to 

know that it was "a stupid thing 

to be doing," if I believe the 

messages from the past. I realized 

that I was going to get really 

discouraged, that I wouldn't 

have any support initially, and 

that I'd have only myself to rely 

on—going back into a situation 

where I ' d been beaten and 

abused growing up. I was set 

up for failure in a way. But I 

had the advantage that I'd seen 

it all before. It was nothing new. 

And I knew all the messages. 

I devised some little strategies 

for myself. I knew that my 

50 

patterns would try to tear down 

anything positive that I did, 

that they would be in my head 

telling me that I was a low-life 

little piece of shit, all the time. I 

knew that I couldn't rely on my 

judgment about how it was 

going and that I had to build 

some kind of a cushion for myself 

against that. I decided that 

as I went through my day at the 

factory, that I'd look around me 

and I'd take credit for anything 

good that happened in my environment. 

Because I realized 

that I couldn't prove that I didn't 

have anything to do with it. I 

applied a little logic to it. It's 

true, when you think about it, 

that every person does make a 

difference o n a jo b s ite. I 

couldn't prove that I wasn't just 

part of that. So I fought my patterns 

that way. 

It's good to counsel directly 

on discouragement every once 

in a while, too, just to say, "It 

will never wor k " and cry. I 

think we forget to do that sometimes. 

Question: When my client says 

"Oh, this will never work," I don't 

know what to do as a counselor. 

Well, there are a lot of things 

one can do. One is to remember 

that sometimes people need to 

say that—that life is hard and 

people need to say that. I think a 

lot of us get shaky and scared 

when somebody shows some 

weakness. One good direction 

is, "Yeah, tell me about it. 

What's it like?" We had a great 

table at lunch, with wage-earning 

women. For them to talk 

about, 'What's it lik e facing 

that sexism every day? What's 

it lik e going out there every 

day?" is very empowering. To 

be able to call a spade a spade.

A woman, a carpenter, who 

was a t the b u ild in g trades 

workshop I d id i n January, 

talked about that. She's an 

amazing woman. She runs a 

contracting bus ines s , a l l 

women. She's worked in this 

trade for twelve years. She's 

worked w it h men, too—all 

kinds o f experience. And she 

says every day she gets up in 

the morning, and as she gets 

ready to go to work, this voice 

in her head says to her, "I can't 

do this." Every day. Every day 

for twelve years. And she said, 

"Every day I get out there and 

do it. And at the end of the day I 

look back and I've done it. And 

the next morning I get up and a 

voice in my head says, 'I can't 

do this." With her, I'd just say, 

"Tell me about it. What's it 

like?" Maybe get angry. Maybe 

wildly celebrate her. Let people 

show it. The discharge is good. 

When I get that kind of counseling, 

it goes well. Just someone 

asking, "How hard is it, Dan?" I 

think we need to develop some 

slack for that, and not worry 

that people are going to go 

under. You know, we're pretty 

tough. We've survived. A lot. 

I t hink the working-class 

commitment is a powerful tool 

for the counselor. T he im - 

portant thing to remember is 

that it is, in the case lam talking 

about, a tool for the counselor. 

The client, in the middle of their 

discouragement, may not remember 

it; but the counselor 

can use it in all kinds of ways. 

You can have the client say the 

commitment, but it is important 

to remember that a commitment 

is not a prayer or 

something that if you say it four 

times a day you will be a better 

person. It is an attitude. If this 

attitude is adopted by the counselor, 

it can be very useful along 

with everything else the counselor 

can do. It is first and foremost 

the counselor who must 

remember to have pride in the 

"intelligence, strength, endurance 

and goodness of workingclass 

people, etc." If he or she 

can do this and communicate 

this attitude to the c lient in 

whatever way, things w ill go 

quite well. If he or she as counselor 

forgets the commitment— 

"Oh, my God, this looks quite 

hopeless."---the client is going 

to have a hard time moving on 

their discouragement. 

Question: I am a shop steward. 

I've used RC as a shop steward. I'm 

somewhat of a leader and people 

come to me with their problems, 

whether it is work related or not. I 

get a lot of respect and such. 

There's a certain situation that 

comes to mind that I'm having difficulty 

figuring out how to deal 

with: I have a client (in union 

terms), an employee, who is very 

51 

Dan: This job gets easier and 

easier. 

So I just answered my own 

question. 

Dan: That's a Wygelian leaders' 

group—works great. 

LIBERATION 

pissed off at a supervisor and I 

know what is going to happen 

when the employee and the supervisor 

and myself are about to sit 

down, when the supervisor is about 

to get a disciplinary action on this 

employee. The employee is going to 

blow up and start calling him a son 

of a bitch and sort of make a mess of 

the whole situation. If we dealt 

with i t calmly and rationally, I 

might be able to work things out, 

but as a result (of his anger) a lot of 

times the employee will discharge 

all over the place and make a worse 

situation. 

What I'll tell that employee on 

the way to the supervisor is, "Just 

shut up and be quiet and let me do 

the talking." I'm basically telling 

that employee, "Don't discharge, 

because you are going to mess 

things up." 

And I suppose I am coming to 

my own conclusion about i t. 

(laughter) I guess I should sit 

down with the employee first of all 

and encourage him to discharge 

with me before going to the supervisor.

LIBERATION 

Succeeding Against the Oppression in Graduate School 

In November 1990 at our Regional women's 

workshop, three of us met and decided to start a 

graduate student support group, starting with a 

gather-in to include other RC graduate students 

in the two Regions of the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Claudia Castaneda, Mik i Kashtan and I began 

the process of organizing the gather-in. I was 

asked to lead the first meeting and the subsequent 

support groups. 

We had a gather-in on Apr il 8, 1991 w it h 

twelve RCers attending. O ur current support 

group has met monthly since May 1991 and we 

had our first one-day workshop last September. 

We are a diverse group, comprised of graduate 

students from UC Santa Cruz, Stanford University, 

Holy Names College, San Jose State University, 

San Francisco State University, California 

School of Professional Psychology, UC Berkeley, 

Union Institute, University of Hawaii. Our fields 

of study include Women's Studies, History of 

Consciousness, Englis h Literature, Public 

Health, Library Science, Sociology, Political Science, 

Law, Environmental Policy, Education, 

Psychology, Drama and Theatre. Half of our 

group members are persons of color. All of us 

were raised working-class. 

The following piece is a synthesis of my initial 

thoughts about being a graduate student and the 

issues that emerged from the support group 

meetings. I suspect that the most important thing 

about our support group has been the contradiction 

to the isolation which is so prevalent among 

graduate students. I suspect that the closeness 

and support that we provide each other is crucial 

to our breakthrough thinking in our course work 

and potentially the beginnings of challenging 

the oppressive practices in the universities. 

OUR INTELLIGENCE IS IMPORTANT TO 

THE WORLD 

We are in a crisis situation in the world, internationally 

and locally. There has never been a 

time in the history of our planet when our survival 

as living creatures depends more on everyone's 

critical think ing and actions, especially 

those of us who have chosen to take on the 

necessary leadership to steer the world from 

global disaster. 

52 

For those of us who are people of color, our 

communities are in critical need of thoughtful 

leadership, as our people confront the long-term 

health and social effects of racial oppression. Our 

knowledge and skills are critical in helping our 

people combat the internalized oppression. Due 

to our accomplishments in the educational setting, 

we have access to many key persons who 

can influence changes in public policy and practices 

that affect our people. 

Our decision to continue with our education 

in graduate school is partly based on our vision 

of what the world can be without the oppressions 

that mar our lives. We have chosen to use 

our analytical and our creative abilities to think 

and solve problems. Graduate school allows us 

the time to think and analyze problems in depth; 

we have access to people who have studied specific 

issues and who have made important contributions 

in their fields of expertise. In graduate 

school, we are encouraged to tackle problems 

with the expectations to come up with fresh new 

thinking and solutions. 

We have found some way throughout our 

lives to keep our ability to learn in the formal 

school settings intact. Despite the many invalidations 

and difficulties that we have encountered, 

we have maintained our ability to function 

in the educational system which challenges our 

ability to absorb and analyze tremendous 

amounts of information. Our intellectual ability, 

defined within the parameters of the educational 

system, has been a vehicle for self-validation and 

enjoyment for many of us. For some of us, excelling 

in school was our means of "escape" from 

the harsh realities of our family situations. 

THE OPPRESSIVE NATURE OF THE EDU- 

CATIONAL SYSTEM 

As graduate students, we are constantly faced 

with the patterns acted out by the agents of oppression. 

Some of the patterns include: (1) invalidating 

our original and creative thinking, particularly 

if it contradicts or challenges the dominant 

culture's perspectives; (2) forc ing us, 

through invalidations, to suppress our feelings 

so that we can "intellectualize" the concepts (as 

difficult as they may be to confront, such as

competition amongst graduate students as a 

means of isolating and separating students. 

MAINT AINING OUR POWERFULNESS AS 

GRADUATE STUDENTS 

What keeps us from acting on our inherent 

powerfulness and ability to respond to each new 

situation in a unique way is our internalized 

oppression. Where we have not yet cleared up 

our distresses, the internalized oppression of 

young people, racism, class oppression, etc. will 

probably be the place where we "get stuck" in 

our work as graduate students. 

It is therefore necessary to focus our sessions 

on some key issues as graduate students. The 

following points are beginning thoughts on what 

may confront us while in school and can serve as 

questions to counsel from. 

(1) How do we continue to think about every 

new situation that we confront as graduate students? 

How do we keep our attention outside of 

the potential restimulations? 

(2) How do we set up our lives so that we are 

zestful and interested every minute of our graduate 

school experience? How can we use support 

A t Diane Balser's 200-strong women's workshop, 

I came on m y menstrual period after 

swimming. I had period pains and thought, 

"What a glorious opportunity t o discharge 

them!" 

Firstly I giggled loads w it h other y oung 

women about the hilarious names we call 'protection,' 

like surfboards, bricks, nappies, mice, 

things. 

Then I discharged on when I first realised 

women had periods. The lack of information 

and misinformation in this area is systematic 

and part of young people's oppression. I discharged 

on my first period and what was going 

on around then. 

53 

LIBERATION 

networks with our classmates to contradict competition 

and isolation? 

(3) How do we maintain the vision and 

dreams which initially brought us to graduate 

school? How do we continuously appreciate 

ourselves and our work and contradict the constant 

invalidations? 

(4) How do we begin to break down the oppressive 

situations which we confront in the university 

institutions? 

(5) How can we include celebrations of daily 

victories against both external and internalized 

oppressions? 

(6) How do we build alliances amongst each 

other to think and to act against the oppressive 

situations? How do we build alliances with our 

professors and other university leaders? 

(7) What steps will we take in leadership in the 

world, using our knowledge and skills to build a 

rational society? 

I'm sure there are more issues which we need 

to address. I hope that you will share them in 

support groups and other meetings. 

-9 M i a Luluquisen 

Oakland, California, USA 

FACING AND DISCHARGING DISTRESS ABOUT PERIODS 

Karen Harley led an excellent topic group on 

periods. She said to discharge so as to fully 

welcome your periods. Discharge on completely 

loving your womb. What do you love about 

your periods? What are all the funny myths 

you've been told? How old were y ou when 

you started? 

My pains stopped during the topic group on 

Allies to Young People. I think periods are one 

of the best things ever. They remind me how 

deeply connected lam to my female body and 

to every single woman in the whole world. 

Joanne Bird 

Manchester, England

LIBERATION 

DRAFT POLICY STATEMENT ON FAT PEOPLE'S LIBERATION 

1. Fat oppression is a pervasive 

and largely unchallenged 

form of oppression that divides 

people on the basis o f body 

shape, type and size. Fat oppression 

is institutionalized in the 

form of social ostracism, job and 

housing discrimination, poor 

medical care, lack of access to 

education and recreational opportunities 

and hurtful physical 

accommodations. 

2. Fat oppression also divides 

people on a personal basis. Fat 

people often play the role of 

"target" for other people's distress, 

not only for strangers but 

for the people closest to us. We 

are often considered stupid, 

weak-willed, lazy, out-of-control, 

undesirable, and mentally 

incompetent. 

3. The standards of acceptable 

sizes vary from culture to 

culture and change in different 

periods for commercial, fashionable 

and profit-making reasons. 

In this society there is a constant 

search for excuses to oppress 

different groups of people. There 

are often changes made in the 

ways of labeling fat people in 

order to inflict oppression upon 

them. Nobody deserves to be 

oppressed. 

4. We propose that everyone 

who has been oppressed for being 

fat consider herself/himself a 

fat person for the purposes of 

liberation struggle, regardless of 

actual weight, past or present. 

This includes people who do not 

appear fat because they have 

changed their body size by some 

artificial means such as severe 

proposed revision-1992 

diets, bulimia, anorexia, o r 

surgical procedures in an attempt 

to escape the oppression. 

5. There is evidence that repeated 

dieting is harmful to human 

health. Without careful supervision, 

dieting will tend to 

deplete muscle and organ tissue 

seriously before it eliminates the 

targeted fat. Repeated dieting 

can do damage to the heart and 

other vital organs causing the 

previously healthy person to become 

ill. For this reason repeated 

and/or excessive restriction 

of caloric intake is irrational. 

Excessive dieting and excessive 

eating are both bad for one's 

health and therefore irrational. 

6. The issue of rational eating 

and the issue of oppression of fat 

people are not the same issue 

and should not be confused. In 

fact, in our society, people of all 

sizes eat irrationally. 

7. Each person can, using discharge 

and re-evaluation, decide 

for herself or himself what is 

rational eating. In general, rational 

eating means eating 

healthy foods in the amounts 

that promote survival and well 

being. No one deserves to be 

oppressed either because of their 

size or because of what or how 

much they eat. 

8. Fat oppression is "justified" 

by the oppressive society on the 

grounds o f physical health. 

Being fat is not necessarily an 

unhealthy condition nor is being 

thin necessarily a healthy one. 

Various fat people are healthy to 

varying degrees, as are nonfat 

people. 

54 

9. Fat oppression, like all 

other oppressions, arises from 

and is supported by class oppression. 

Fat provides a major visual 

cue that makes the division of 

the working class more quickly 

accomplished and provides a 

distraction from economic issues 

to false issues of personal 

hygiene and health. A disproportionate 

number of fat people 

are from poor and working-class 

backgrounds. Fat people internalize 

the message that our position 

in life is due to our weight. 

Therefore, we often wait for the 

day when we will no longer have 

the appearance of fat, instead of 

actively fighting class oppression. 

10. Fat oppression appeared 

at a certain stage of industrial 

capitalism. The oppression of fat 

people became an important 

source of profits at that stage. 

Billions are made each year from 

the creation of unrealistic beauty 

standards and false models of 

"normalcy" which create a market 

for addictive, non-nutritive 

foods, drugs, devices, medical 

procedures and misleading literature 

that give the illusion of offering 

a solution to a "created" 

problem. 

11. The unworkability of solutions 

offered by the diet industry 

needs to be vigorously exposed 

and interrupted, while respecting 

the individuals who promote 

or follow them. Such "weight 

loss" programs often appear to 

offer the only hope for many 

people sick of the problems of 

being over-weight and the oppression 

connected to it. This

false impression needs to be vigorously 

contradicted. 

12. Both fat men and fat 

women are oppressed. However, 

fat women are allowed to 

deviate within a much smaller 

range and are oppressed by sexism 

as well. Under sexism, the 

worth of a woman is measured 

in terms of her physical attractiveness, 

one of the standards of 

which, in the Western cultures, 

is slimness. Women who have 

the appearance of being fat are 

seen as rebelling against femininity 

by "having let themselves 

go," and are punished for it. Men 

with sexist patterns often feel 

safe in acting more openly oppressive 

of fat women, often with 

the active encouragement of the 

internalized sexism o f nonfat 

women and/or the internalized 

fat oppression of fat women. By 

this oppressive behavior, men 

attempt to escape their own pain 

at being dehumanized as men in 

a sexist society which oppresses 

both men and women. 

13. The whole image of what 

a woman's body should look 

like, as perpetuated by an oppressive 

society for the purpose 

of selling products, in many societies 

is largely modeled after prepubescent 

male bodies. Female 

bodies inherently carry a larger 

amount of subcutaneous fat deposits 

than men's. 

14. We are all hurt by fat oppression. 

It makes us feel bad 

about our own bodies. It causes 

us to feel competitive with others 

based on body size. It separates 

and isolates us from each 

other when it is really our nature 

to be close and cooperative. A 

person who discharges her/his 

fear of fat will invariably be removing 

a major foundation 

stone of his/her own oppression. 

15. The oppression o f fat 

people is connected to other 

forms of oppression. For example, 

fat people often play out 

oppressor roles by agreeing that 

fat is bad because it makes one 

look old ("ageism") or because it 

makes one feel disabled ("normalism" 

or "ableism"). Fat people 

must work for the end of all 

oppression simultaneously and 

with the same vigor that we apply 

towards the ending of our 

own. 

55 

LIBERATION 

16. Fat people have many 

strengths to share. Individual fat 

people may develop highly intellectual, 

artistic o r social 

strengths in order to compensate 

for being discouraged from participating 

in or even being shut 

out of many physical and social 

activities because of fat oppression. 

It is important that we acknowledge 

and appreciate our 

strengths and refuse to buy into 

the false messages that would 

deny us our humanity. 

17. Internalized oppression in 

fat people can be quite severe, 

since historically there has been 

little support for the interruption 

of fat oppression. All fat people 

can and should take pride in ourselves 

as people and in our bodies, 

regardless of size. WE HAVE 

NOTHING TO LOSE! 

The above is based on a draft 

policy statement created by Eileen 

Lemke-Meconi of Olympia, 

Washington, USA (Present Time, 

October 1982). It has been revised 

by Susan McAllister, Information 

Coordinator for Fat People 

in RC, and Judy Freespirit, of 

Berkeley, California, and edited 

by the Rational Island staff

LIBERATION 

Dear Writers, 

Communicating on Paper 

A New International Liberation Reference Person 

Writes to Writers for Present Time 

I am writing to you for the first time as 

International Liberation Reference Person for 

Writers. I want to share some of my thinking 

about writers and writing, tell you how I see 

myself doing this job and ask you what you 

want from me. 

First, I have to say that I think everyone is a 

writer. l think there are differences in writing for 

publication, writing for pleasure/leisure/fun, 

writing as part of a job and 'writing for a living,' 

though these are not mutually exclusive either. 

But given the nature of the publishing 'business' 

(exploitative of writers, low paid, insecure), 

most writers are not able to earn a living 

from writing, though many earn money from 

their writing and some earn part of their living 

from writing. Only a few earn a full living from 

writing, and even fewer a fortune. In any case, I 

do not believe that earning a living is what 

distinguishes 'real' writers from non-writers or 

other writers. 

People are no less 'real' writers for not earning 

their living from writing. The eminent English 

poet Philip Larkin worked all his life as a 

librarian at the University of Hull. The American 

poets Wallace Stevens and William Carlos 

Williams were, respectively, a corporate lawyer 

in the insurance business and a physician 

in a working-class community. 

Nor do I believe that publication makes a 

writer a 'real' writer. Getting paid for your 

writing work is important, getting published is 

important, but they are not what make you a 

writer, or a real writer. I reject the divisions 

between earning a full living, earning part of a 

living and earning no living from writing, between 

being published or not, between being 

'successful' and 'famous' or not, between fiction 

and non-fiction. These are all labels and 

56 

categories and divisions created by the oppressive 

system. (So far I have mostly written 

and published non-fiction, including an essay 

entitled 'The Art of Non-Fiction!') 

The very notion of a 'real' writer is part of the 

oppression and the internalised oppression, as 

is the notion that writers have to struggle, or be 

poor (or rich), or be isolated, or eccentric or 

different. A real writer is anyone who writes or 

anyone who wants to write, and that is probably 

most people. You don't even have to be literate 

to be a writer. People who have never 

learned to read or write are writers when they 

speak and their speech is recorded, or written 

down for them. Many of my books—the ones 

that are written and the ones that are still to be 

written—are based on tape recorded interviews 

with 'ordinary' people talking about their lives. 

If everyone's a writer, then what is my job as 

ILRP? It must be more than offering leadership 

to those people who have managed to identify 

themselves as writers, important though you 

are. It must also include motivating, inspiring 

and furthering the re-emergence of all those 

people who, because of the oppression, do not 

yet recognise themselves as writers, or the 

value of their writing. 

I see my job as enabling everyone to get on 

and do 'it,' 'it' being whatever it is they want to 

write, as often and as well as they want to write 

it—from shopping lists to soap operas to sonnets, 

from plays and poems to party invitations. 

One of the most rewarding writing groups 

(non-RC) I have organised and led was a series 

of workshops for women who did not 'identify' 

as writers. I enjoyed leading them to recognise 

how much they write all the time (notes, letters, 

diaries); getting them to value the writing 

they already did; letting them know that 

women have always done this kind of writing,

that it is sexism which has obscured and devalued 

women's writing. It gave them a new perspective 

on themselves as writers, enabled 

them to take their writing seriously and get on 

with it. 

I believe writing is a way to reclaim one's 

own power and to empower other people with 

ideas, with information, with inspiration. It is 

also a way to facilitate change. I do many kinds 

of writing: committee reports, for example, in 

my salaried employment in local government. 

These have to be written in a particular, fairly 

dull, and bureaucratic style and to a rigid format 

and formula. I enjoy the challenge, and the 

outcome has been major changes in the organisation 

to benefit women (career break 

schemes, term time working, after school and 

holiday provisions, increasing the representation 

of women in senior positions). I regard this 

as important liberation writing. 

I write and publish journalism occasionally 

now, when I feel like it or have some specific 

liberation objectives in mind. I used to 'be' a 

drama critic (as I put it then) with a weekly 

column, but gave it up after ten years when I 

decided l wanted to write my own work rather 

than write about other people's work. 

I am the author of four books, co-author of 

two books, editor of two books, contributor of 

chapters to eight books, author of dozens of 

journal articles and hundreds of pieces of journalism. 

But I know I have not begun to achieve 

my real dreams and goals, and am not even 

sure that I know what they all are, even yet, 

whether I have set my sights high enough. 

I love writing (although it is not always easy). 

I love writers. I love being with and working 

with writers. I used to teach playwriting at the 

City Lit, an adult education centre in London, 

and lead writers workshops—as part o f my 

living. I led a city-wide RC writers group for 

several years in the 1980s. It produced great 

achievements for everyone in it. Some of the 

outcomes were writing achievements, some 

were other forms of wide world liberation leadership. 

That was fine. Focussing on re-emergence 

as writers usually contradicts chronic 

57 

LIBERATION 

distress that is inhibiting the exercise of our 

power in other areas. 

I've currently led a city-wide RC women 

writers group for just over a year. It has had a 

dramatic effect on what each of us has decided 

to do and what we have done, each reclaiming 

power as writers, writing and publishing, but 

also becoming more powerful in every other 

area of our lives. 

I also 'lead' a non-RC women writers group. 

We are all mothers and we call our group The 

Mothers. We've been meeting now for ten years 

and the group has transformed our lives. We 

meet once a month, we divide the time equally 

and use it for whatever we want. Although it is 

not an RC group, there is much discharge. It 

just comes naturally. Having had the experience 

o f dividing time, talking and listening, 

these women would no more do anything else 

now in this group than they would willingly 

walk in front of a bus. 

I have encouraged other writers to set up 

support groups, both RC and non-RC. One has 

recently set up a successful non-RC 'freelance' 

group of women who earn their living from 

freelance journalism. I would encourage every 

one of you to set up an RC writers support 

group and a non-RC writers support group, or 

combine the two, RCers and non-RCers. l can 

promise you that if you do NOTHING else, it 

will change your life, not just as a writer, but in 

taking charge wherever it is you are not now 

and need to. 

It may be useful to work in separate groups 

around different kinds of writing or different 

kinds of writing circumstances, but my real 

belief is that it is most re-emergent to work 

together, everyone setting their own goals to 

reach their own dreams, whatever they are. 

You don't really need to 'do' much in your 

group. Meet once a month. To have the group 

and to meet are themselves major contradictions 

to the isolation. You'll learn a lot from 

each other. Otherwise all you need to do is to 

use the group to make decisions and then to 

act on them. The discharge occurs autocontinued..

LIBERATION 

continued... 

matically when y ou do this. Mostly we just 

divide the time equally for talking and discharging. 

This is true of both my RC groups 

and my non-RC groups. Sometimes I share information 

and theory or insights. Sometimes 

we write with attention, in pairs or in the group 

as a whole (very powerful this). One person 

writes and discharges, the other—or the whole 

group—pays attention. And we always make 

time to 'publish' what we've written: i.e., reading 

it aloud to the group. This is very important 

too. 

I always encourage everyone to write for 

publication in the wide world. The worst thing 

that will happen to y ou is that y ou will be 

rejected. So what? You're not a failure if you 

don't make it, you're a success because you 

try. Go after what and who you want. Rejections 

are a sign of success in moving on. 

We rarely work on competition directly, but 

it gets addressed minute by minute as we 

cheer each other on to greater and greater 

goals and celebrate eac h other's achievements. 

The mos t important contradiction o f my 

support groups, RC and otherwise: it's for real, 

not a rehearsal. 

Those of you who know me know that I have 

been a 'doer,' a functioner and a high achiever. 

My re-emergence has progressed measurably 

by the extent to which I have been able to give 

this up. I don't want to 'do' any of the 'doing' or 

caretaking or looking after or helping in this 

job. I want to BE here for you in some meaningful 

way and need t o discover what that 

means. 

58 

I would like to invite you to write to me. I 

would like to know what you want as writers 

from me as ILRP. Tell me what that is. I'd also 

like to know what stops you writing and realising 

your dreams as writers, and what you've 

done about it. I don't know yet if I can undertake 

to write back to you, but l will value very 

highly anything you share with me and will try 

to find a way to share what you write to me with 

other writers. 

I do not want to put together a newsletter, 

but perhaps one of you would like to. I have 

edited a number o f newsletters in m y life, 

always a rewarding and re-emergent experience 

at the time. I can and will lead some 

workshops, but would prefer to create a model 

for effective workshops on writing that can be 

reproduced and led by other people around the 

world. I will make that my first project. And I 

will write an article for Present Time about 

writing. 

I would like to ask RRPs and ARPs to find out 

who in their Regions and Areas would like to 

identify themselves as writers, and arrange for 

their names, addresses and telephone numbers 

to be sent to Seattle to go on the writers 

liberation mailing list. 

Enough for now. I'm here. You k now I'm 

here. I'm writing. I intend to go for what I want, 

nothing less than everything, and discover 

what it is as I go for it. I intend to make my 

dreams come true and love the thought that 

there are dozens, hundreds, thousands, even 

millions of you doing the same and getting 

your real needs met as you do it. 

Catherine Itzin 

PO Box 844 

London SE5 9QP, England

OBSERVING MY STUDENTS RE-EVALUATE 

My semester at the university is now over. The first group of students (thirty) who I taught RC 

to are graduating tomorrow. I care for all of them, but the six who assisted me in teaching fundamentals 

this past fall are the ones I shall pursue. Three out of these six were able to take an 

ongoing class with me this spring in the Community. As Information Coordinator for occupational 

therapists, I encouraged all of them to write to me. 

I wanted to comment further about my students' reactions to the pamphlet What's Wrong 

with the "Mental Health" System and What You Can Do About It. As í told you, many of them 

were horrified by what they read and couldn't believe it would be true of the "mental health" 

system. Upon returning from their practicurns in mental hospitals, many students ended up 

agreeing with the pamphlet—especially those who were placed in either Veterans Administration 

hospitals or state hospitals. Those who were in acute in-patient settings actually saw people 

doing their best to help people in distress. They saw a great deal of caring and compassion. It was 

only when prompted to examine whether or not discharge was permitted and encouraged and 

whether or not clients were actually empowered or rendered dependent on the system that they 

could re-evaluate their impressions of the acute in-patient setting. I have enclosed a copy of one 

student's paper that I thought you might be interested in. She said that you could publish any 

part of it. (It appears below. Editor) 

What's Wrong with the "Mental Health" System? 

My thoughts about What's Wrong with the 

"Mental Health" System? have changed dramatically 

since I completed my mental health 

clinical. 

The first thing that I want to add is that I now 

understand that Jackins was the author of the 

introduction only, and that the book was written 

by survivors of the mental health system. 

As I re-read the book I found many of the 

things written to be confirmed by what I observed 

on my clinical. This surprised me. My 

original paper was full o f some very strong 

criticism about the book. I realize now that, for 

the most part, what the authors claim to be true 

is accurate. 

The thing that stands out in my mind the 

most is that many "mental health" system con- 

SECOND THOUGHTS 

59 

LIBERATION 

J - - 

USA 

sumers are very angry. Also, in the particular 

setting that I was in, I actually saw occupational 

therapy as "useless and trivial busywork" 

for the most part. I made a statement in 

my first paper that I was rather offended by the 

thought of this occurring, so it was distressing 

for me to see that it really is this way for many 

clients. I found it to be extremely frustrating, 

and along with this went a feeling of helplessness. 

This leads me to my next point, which is how 

oppressed the "mental health" workers are as 

well. I think that seeing this first-hand has 

helped me to understand better how the system 

is set up to oppress everyone involved in 

it. The client-to-therapist ratio at my site was 

about 80:1. With such a huge ratio like this it 

doesn't surprise me that the therapists don't 

even know half of the names of the clients in 

continued...

LIBERATION 

continued... 

the clinic at any given time. No wonder the 

"mental health" system survivors are angry! l 

am surprised that more "mental health" workers 

aren't angry as well. Caseloads are too 

large, facilities are understaffed, and community 

resources are too few. 

The authors of the book mention over and 

over again how dehumanizing the "mental 

health" system c an be, and the feelings o f 

disempowerment that coincide with being labeled. 

l talked with several clients who agreed 

with this completely. This goes along with 

"mental health" workers not allowing clients to 

discharge. l was very upset to see this happen. 

l was talking with a client (a Vietnam veteran) 

who was beginning to discharge about how 

hard it is to be a man and be able to show feelings, 

etc. As l sat and listened this man began 

to cry. No sooner had he begun when one of 

the occupational therapists approached and 

told him that he doesn't need to do that "here"; 

that he has a peer support group that is the 

place to go to talk. Needless to say, this man 

left the clinic angry and did not return the next 

day. The book's authors stated that "to be 

warm and friendly to patients is considered 

unprofessional" (p. 42). I only hope that l am 

never as "professional" as the "mental health" 

workers that l have observed. (When l make 

this statement l am basing it on this one incident.) 

The authors also discussed the "one-way 

nature of psychotherapy." l heard complaints 

60 

from clients that they were tired o f being 

"talked at," and what they really wanted was 

just to be "listened to." In fact, the same man 

that l just mentioned told me that he "would 

rather be listened to for five minutes than to 

have someone talk at" him. l see this as a good 

example of how important it is for clients (and 

therapists) to be validated as human beings 

and to be allowed to discharge. 

The book talks about feelings of hopelessness 

among "mental health" consumers. I t 

seemed to be the general opinion of the staff at 

my site that the majority of the clients would be 

coming back. In fact, on Monday mornings 

they look at the new admissions list and actually 

place bets on how many will be "repeat 

offenders" as they call them. How can "mental 

health" consumers feel any hope at all when 

they don't feel listened to, don't feel like they 

are being "treated" in most cases, and when 

the staff have such little faith in their recovery. 

There isn't much here to feel hopeful about. 

Like l said before, m y feelings about the 

book What's Wrong with the "Mental Health" 

System have been greatly changed. l continue 

to stand by the positive things that l wrote 

about the book, but l have reconsidered many 

of the more negative points that l made. The 

greatest credit for this change of opinion has to 

go to a few veterans whose openness in sharing 

with me what it is lik e to be a "mental 

health" consumer has changed more for me 

than my opinion about a book.

Moving Carefully and Confidently 

I have been working as a children's social 

worker in a London hospital for the past two years, 

which has prompted me to think of ways to make a 

difference, in a system which is riddled with oppressive 

patterns. The two areas where I have 

invested most energy have been in making close 

connections with people, and in challenging oppressive 

behaviour, particularly racism. 

NATURE OF THE OPPRESSION 

The reason hospitals exist is so that people can 

have the right conditions to recover from illness or 

accidents. They should be an ideal place therefore 

for healing. Unfortunately however, not only are 

patients oppressed there, but it is clear to me that 

staff at every level are also oppressed. 

When people come to hospital, it is usually an 

experience of crisis for them, because having an 

accident or an illness brings issues with it such as 

major life changes, pain, disability or even death. 

It a time therefore when feelings of terror or grief 

can be uppermost. People find little attention 

available to help them discharge, and may have 

difficulty in even getting detailed information 

about their diagnosis or treatment. They are expected 

to conform to unfamiliar ward routines 

(which are set up largely for the convenience of 

staff rather than patients), without an explanation. 

No one's permission is sought for instance during 

a ward round, for a large group of doctors in training 

to assemble around a patient's bed, without 

any thought to the patient's privacy. It is just taken 

for granted, and a patient who complains or questions 

anything, can very quickly be labelled as 

'difficult.' 

So where do staff fit into this picture? In my view 

they are mistreated in at least three ways, all of 

which are interl inked: 

1. They work in a system where their humanness 

is devalued, and medical knowledge overvalued. 

Human skills such as giving time, attention 

and explanation to people are dismissed as 

unimportant, whereas medical skills, because they 

gain privileges and status for a person, are grossly 

overrated. A consequence of this is that 'professional 

behaviour' is seen as an ability to keep an 

61 

LIBERATION 

interpersonal distance, and focus completely on 

the ailment or injury, regardless of its emotional 

impact for the patient. 

2. The system is designed to separate workers 

into different professional or manual groups, highlight 

their differences, and keep them in competition 

with each other by rewarding some more than 

others. A person's place in the hierarchy is determined 

by the amount of their medical knowledge, 

so a physiotherapist would be rated as more essential 

than a social worker. Of course everyone's 

different skills are important, but it is the skewing 

of value towards the skills to which wealthier 

people have access that so clearly links the hospital 

hierarchy with the class system in society. 

Human skills are important too, but they aren't 

valued as much in hospital because they are potentially 

accessible to anyone. Not all doctors 

have lost touch with their humanity, but unfortunately 

it is too common a sight to see a consultant 

act in an arrogant and dismissive way towards 

both his patients and his junior doctors. (I am 

using the male gender here because very few 

women ever get to consultant level.) Although 

consultants appear to gain from their advantageous 

position in the hierarchy, they are in reality 

very isolated, in competition with each other, and 

frightened to admit to difficulties in case they lose 

their status. 

3. Both nurses and junior doctors are systematically 

denied the time and resources necessary to 

recover emotionally from the traumas, pain, and 

exhaustion they suffer every day as part of their 

work. They are expected to get on with their work 

no matter what tragedy they have witnessed, and 

to show upset is seen as 'unprofessional.' The 

biggest single obstacle I have seen to setting up of 

support groups for staff is the lack of time made 

available. 

Of course people's humanness shines through 

all the time in some way or another, but the grip of 

fear keeps the system ticking over without serious 

challenge. People fear losing the respect or privileges 

which they have already achieved, or the 

prospects of it through promotion. Workers with 

less protecticn, like manual workers, may fear 

losing their actual jobs. Patients are afraid too, 

continued...

LIBERATION 

continued... 

because they are dependent on the system for 

treatment, so it's not surprising that they are compliant, 

undemanding, and grateful for what they 

get. If there was safety to discharge, what a difference 

it would make! Consultants could emerge 

from their isolation, nurses from fatigue, and everyone 

else from feeling undervalued, to create a 

space to think about a better system which could 

meet both people's medical and emotional needs, 

and hospitals could become what they should 

be—places of healing. 

CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS 

When I came to work here, I decided the best 

first step was to cultivate good relationships with 

everyone, and I paid particular attention to the 

consultants. My hunch was that underneath their 

airs and graces, they probably felt badly about 

themselves, so I looked out for opportunities to 

give them praise. This proved to be very effective, 

and often had the effect of completely disarming 

them because they are so unused to genuine 

praise. One highlight was a conversation I had 

with a Paediatric Consultant who can be pompous 

and arrogant at times. When I complimented him 

(genuinely) on the way he related with particular 

children on the ward, his response was, "I could 

cringe at the way I have treated children sometimes." 

Moments like these mean a lot to me. Of 

course I have good connections with other staff 

too—for instance I have made a point of learning 

the names of the women who work in the canteen, 

and enjoy having little chats with them while I'm 

getting my lunch each day. 

It took me a while to think of a way of giving RC 

information in a natural way to my colleagues in 

the social work department, because it felt like 

'selling snow to the Eskimos!' However when I 

suggested that I would run a slimming group, it 

proved popular and quickly got off the ground. 

We shared time on our successes around food, the 

difficulties which might have led to binges, and set 

goals for the following week. All of us lost weight, 

and we became closer as a result of the group. 

It took longer for me to think of a way to give 

information about emotions to the doctors, without 

it presenting as a threat. The best idea I had 

was to run a seminar on "Breaking Bad News to 

Patients." I approached each consultant individually 

and presented the idea humbly as something 

in which the junior doctors might have an interest. 

I was delighted that each of them responded with 

enthusiasm, especially when they said they would 

come tool I felt nervous as I had not done a 

training seminar before, but I prepared well and 

made sure that all the doctors knew about it, so 

that attendance was good. About fifteen doctors 

including the four consultants came, and we began 

with a round of what was enjoyable/difficult 

about being a doctor. We then did a series of 

discussions on kinds of bad news they had to 

break, ways patients tend to respond, and ways 

the doctors might feel. After this they had a minisession 

on a time when they were upset and what 

helped, and I then gave some information on what 

is most helpful when someone is upset. We finished 

with a brainstorm on ways they could care 

for themselves after being with someone who is 

upset. I then asked what they had enjoyed about 

the seminar, and the feedback from all of them 

was positive. The most significant factors in its 

being successful appeared to be the establishment 

of close relationships beforehand, thorough preparation 

and the creation of a safe place to be human 

by the way it was structured. 

CHALLENGING OPPRESSION—YOUNG 

PEOPLE 

Because I work with the children's wards, I 

have used any opportunity that arises to give information 

about the benefits of attention and discharge. 

I have also made a large poster for the 

children's Outpatients Department, from the 

pages of the booklet "How to Give Your Child an 

Emotional Headstart," which is attractive to read 

for parents and children who have to wait there. 

A specific time when I acted boldly, although I 

was scared, was when I challenged an orthopaedic 

surgeon on his treatment of a five-year-old boy 

with whom I was working. w a s an abused 

child, whose leg had been broken by his mother 

kicking him, and I had agreed to accompany him 

to the surgeon to get his plaster removed. As soon 

as we entered the office, the surgeon took a phone 

call. We waited there until he was finished and J— 

fidgeted a bit in his chair, probably because he 

was scared. 

62 

When the surgeon put the phone down, he 

addressed J— and said, "Come here, and show me 

where it hurts, so that I can thump you." I was

shocked at thig, and couldn't think what to say at 

the time, but I explained to afterwards that the 

doctor was joking when he said this. That evening 

I thought about it and decided that I couldn't let it 

pass; I had to say something. This surgeon is 

notoriously rude and unfriendly, so I felt scared on 

my way to see him, but clear that it was the right 

thing to do. He refused to see me first of all, but I 

waited outside his office until he came out, and 

insisted that I speak to him. I was careful not to 

attack him, just his behaviour, I told him I was not 

happy with the way he had spoken to this child, 

'who had already suffered abuse. The surgeon did 

not say very much, but I could see that it was a 

new experience for him to be challenged. It wasn't 

until several weeks later that I had any clue as to 

what impression I had made. I requested a written 

report from this surgeon through his secretary on 

the child's progress, but expected a delay of a few 

weeks ¡fit came at all. It was with some amusement 

that I found the report waiting for me in my 

office that very afternoon, personally signed by the 

surgeon! 

CHALLENGING INTERNALISED OPPRES- 

SION—SOCIAL WORKERS 

The work that social workers do is not understood 

or valued very much in hospitals, and one of 

the ways this is reflected is in the poor accommodation 

we are given in which to work. The 

oppression gets internalised so that instead of insisting 

on and demanding what we need, we feel 

grateful that our services are used at all in the 

hospital. 

I took a temporary job as a social work team 

manager last year for three months, and as a result 

moved into a different office which was very drab 

and in bad need of paint. I felt I couldn't bear to 

work there, so on the first day, I went off on foot to 

find the person who manages the painters in the 

hospital, I explained my case and brought him to 

my office to see for himself. The upshot of this was 

that after some negotiation, he agreed to paint not 

only my room, but the whole social work department! 

made friends with Bill, the painter, who happened 

to be Irish, and had fun with the staff as they 

chose colours for their rooms. When the painting 

was finished a few weeks later, another painter 

stopped by one day, and expressed surprise that 

63 

we were allowed to paint all six rooms different 

colours. He said that normally people were told 

what colour they could have, and it was usually 

magnolia! 

CHALLENGING OPPRESSION—RACISM 

LIBERATION 

The first opportunity I had to influence things 

came soon after I arrived, when it was my team's 

turn to organise the two-monthly departmental 

meeting. This was a meeting of the forty or so social 

workers who worked in the borough's four 

hospitals, and the theme for this one was racism. I 

became active in the organisation of it, and introduced 

some changes to the usual format, by 

circulating an advertisement to stimulate interest, 

and have us split into discussion groups during the 

meeting. I also chaired the meeting although I was 

new to the team, because we had no team manager 

at the time. The meeting was very well attended, 

feedback was enthusiastic, and a need 

was expressed for anti-racist training. Over the 

next few months, some structural changes already 

planned by management were put into practice, 

such as making some posts 'black only' posts, but 

there was no money available for training, and the 

social work service to ethnic minorities did not 

improve significantly. 

In the meantime, I decided to find out more 

about services in the borough which were run by 

or for Afro-Caribbean or Asian people. I visited 

and made links with many of these agencies, and 

also started collecting information about housing, 

welfare rights and legal issues which had been 

translated into Asian or European languages. I 

decided to make posters with the information 

which I had gathered up, and got some money 

from the social work department to buy materials. 

For instance I put all the information which I could 

find relating to Vietnamese people or translated 

into Vietnamese on the same poster, and did the 

same for the different Indian languages. I put them 

up in Children's Outpatients where both staff and 

patients could see them, in the hope that it would 

be helpful to parents, and would serve as a reminder 

for white staff that English is not everyone's 

first language. 

Six months later it was my team's turn again to 

organise another departmental meeting, so I suggested 

that we do a follow-up on racism. We invited 

one of the agencies I had linked up with who 

continued...

LIBERATION 

continued... 

dealt with racial attacks to explain about their 

organisation and raise our awareness of the scale 

of the problem. I went in search of a training video 

on the subject of social work and racism, but was 

surprised to find that none existed! What I did find 

was what appeared to be the only training pack of 

its kind on this subject, so I persuaded our social 

service training department to buy a copy as it 

didn't have one. The hospital also bought its own 

copy later on. 

In the course of the search for training materials, 

I met a trainer from our central training department. 

I discovered through talking with him 

that it was possible for him to provide anti-racist 

training tailored to our needs, and that the cost 

could be borne by his department! I met up with 

this trainer several times to develop the idea, and 

then decided to write a detailed proposal for the 

hospital social work manager, outlining my ideas 

for the course, and summarising the training pack 

which I had ordered on approval from the supplier. 

I gave special consideration in the proposal 

to ways of allocating time for a course because the 

staff tend to be very busy and I knew this would be 

an issue. I got the proposal typed, made an ap- 

Recovering My Human Viewpoint While a Manager 

have thought for as long as I can remember 

that human beings can accomplish—without being 

adversarial, oppositional, or tyrannical—all 

we really must to survive and thrive. 

During almost all of my life I have forgotten 

that I thought this. One of RC's gifts I treasure is 

its restoring to my awareness knowledge that we 

can survive and thrive cooperatively and lovingly. 

The shame and terror that kept this knowledge 

from my awareness for most of my life, still 

sometimes interrupts my acting on it. 

In my best moments the thought that we can 

survive and thrive cooperatively and lovingly 

and other knowledge that has come to me 

through RC seems very simple. But it is not always 

easy to apply just because the ideas seem 

universally elegant. 

am particularly interested at this time in 

thinking clearly about being human as a mana- 

64 

pointment to see the manager, and left the proposal 

on her desk overnight, so that she would 

have time to read it before our meeting. 

Well, my plans just fell into place! My manager 

was very receptive, and appreciated the work 

which had already been done. She invited the 

trainer and me to a management meeting, at which 

they decided to opt for the longest time module 

suggested. This was a two-day course run three 

times so that everyone could attend. A few months 

later, the anti-racist course was run for the whole 

social work department, and I was very pleased! 

Of course there is much to be done, and it is 

easy in these times of cutbacks and re-organisation 

to get distracted, but I hope that the gains will 

remain. It has been a big help to counsel as a white 

on becoming a better ally for black people. I think 

it is important to have the safety to get all the 

distress recordings out of our systems, but it is also 

important to set goals for ourselves, so that we stay 

active in challenging racism, and can chart our 

progress. 

i fl 

Helen Gorman 


ger. In my best moments I am certain of my 

ability to think clearly about my Co-Counselors, 

to see their humanness distinct from their patterns, 

to help them see themselves outside of 

those patterns. I want to contradict those of my 

patterns that hold me back from thinking as 

clearly, seeing as distinctly, and helping as effectively 

the people I manage and the people 

report to in my job. I want to contradict those of 

my patterns that hold me back from thinking 

clearly about actions that will allow my row boat 

to tow the organizational ocean liner. 

appreciate Mike/USA for giving me the row 

boat and ocean liner metaphor in "Rational Management 

of Managing" (April 1992, Present 

Time). I also appreciate his letting me know that 

other Co-Counselors who manage actively work 

at applying RC knowledge in their jobs. Ifeel less 

alone. 

Mike Richardson 

Austin, Texas, USA

Elders Becoming Rational About Age 

Part of the oppression that elders face is the 

way we are perceived during the aging process. 

Our appearance changes. We may have physical 

problems, challenges. These physical aspects can 

become barriers to seeing us as persons. We are 

treated as invisible, considered "over the hill," 

decrepit, inadequate. Our thinking is ignored, 

and we are otherwise dismissed. Not only is 

there this external oppression socially and culturally, 

but we as individuals internalize these 

oppressive ideas and make them our own limitations. 

What is the reality about aging? 

Becoming older involves gradual and imperceptible 

changes in which we are transformed 

into a different physical state, but we remain 

ourselves. Identity is stronger than age. We'll 

never lose our identity; we'll always be ourselves. 

An elder is simply a person who has lived 

longer than a younger person. 

Biological aging happens throughout our 

lives. We can take significant steps to control our 

biological age through discharge, creating a 

healthy life style, and holding life-giving attitudes. 

There can be as much as thirty years between 

a person's biological and chronological 

age. Disease processes are separate from the aging 

process and can happen at any point in our 

lives. It is important never to assume that sickness 

or poor health is happening to us because of 

age. 

The RC video "Discharging the Patterns o f 

White Racism" has been very helpful to me. My 

assistant teacher, Linda Kay, and I watched parts 

of it on two evenings as we got together to prepare 

for our class on overcoming racism. The tape gave 

us theory and excellent guidance on how to discharge 

racism. And i t was quite restimulating, 

which was also useful. We used ten- to fifteenminute 

excerpts from the video in both meetings 

of our two-week class. 

Chuck Esser did a class on overcoming racism 

in his March New Jersey weekend workshop. lied 

65 

LIBERATION 

Still, we have to face that at present the physical 

deterioration of aging and the ending of life 

in death remain realities. One theory as to why 

this occurs (there are several) suggests that our 

cells stop reproducing and dividing rapidly 

enough to replace the worn-out cells and maintain 

the body's vigor and vitality. However, research 

has shown that the degree to which this 

aging mechanism impacts on a person is actually 

minimal. 

Increasingly humans are taking control over 

various physiological processes. What is the real 

limit? How far can we go in taking charge? Can 

we intervene in the aging process? Would a 

completely distress-free person age biologically? 

Assuming the possibility of physical immortality 

can be a powerful tool propelling us to 

push against the frontiers in these area, discharging 

all the way. 

Who knows what the future will bring? In the 

meantime the elders' commitment: 

I promise I will never die; 

I will never slow down; and 

I will have more fun than ever. 

is a strong contradiction to any distress that 

would hold us back, and challenges us to never 

give up or settle. 

Videotapes and Effort Against Racism 

Marge Larra bee 

Washington, DC, USA 

the support group on overcoming racism following 

Chuck's class and I did a very good job with it, 

for which I credit both the RC video and my own 

determination which had kept me working on the 

topic for several weeks. Overcoming racism 

doesn't feel like a "fun" topic, but I think my persistence 

in working on it has paid off. Of course, 

do not claim to have gotten rid of my racism, but I 

do feel I have made tremendous progress. And 

working on it now is not as "hard" as it was at first. 

Dawn Day 

Princeton, New Jersey, USA

FROM THE MAIL 

PROGRESSING THROUGH AN OVER-FULL LIFE 

This spring l led an "Allies to Young People" 

workshop in Sheffield for my Region. Unbelievably 

this is the first such weekend I've ever 

done, though I've led many evenings and days, 

usually in Areas and Regions away from home. 

[realised that given my isolation on this issue 

in particular, it is actually no surprise that a 

workshop hadn't happened before. It took Greg 

Finster, a young adult from Sheffield, to suggest 

it, agree to organise it and then actually 

organise it superbly. 

The weekend went well. I was pleased with 

the theory l gave. I tend to think it's all "old 

stuff," but many people had not heard it before, 

and those who had previously read some of it 

valued hearing it from me directly. The level of 

discharge was high; focusing on this issue sets 

an excellent tone of going right for our own 

deepest childhood hurts with our sights firmly 

set on powerful liberation and world change. l 

was pleased with my counselling of adults on 

being fully, rationally adult in the real sense of 

the word. I was also pleased at my remembering 

to counsel people first when being asked 

questions about how to deal with various situations 

with young people: so much seems to 

stem primarily fr om worry and guilt, whic h 

must be discharged before any information 

can be usefully given. 

It was a very useful weekend for me. Feelings 

of isolation and desperation came up with 

a vengeance-as witnessed by profoundly irrational 

eating (always a useful indicator!), but 

this weekend I was able to consistently discharge 

around it. It helped that I was in Terry 

Day's support group. I left the workshop feeling 

it may just be possible, at some time in the 

future, to really be rid of this heavy isolation, 

and this allows me to dare to attempt to stay 

connected with some of my allies at that weekend 

as l travel away, rather than dashing rapidly 

away in great relief, setting up my efficient 

life in isolation again, as l usually do. I also had 

two good stabs at the decision to relinquish all 

self-criticism, regrets and guilt, which is particularly 

important in the context o f young 

66 

people's liberation as that's where the regrets 

and self-blame sit so heavily. 

Life is going well. I'm enjoying my work 

hugely, having spent ten days away from hospital 

work. I realised how much I enjoy the dayto- 

day challenges of hospital life; it's good, fun 

and satisfying in the main. 

Last week I went to see my old boss when l 

was working in community paediatrics, to chat 

through a few ideas with him about possible 

research projects around the area of "teenaged 

health care" in the largest sense: young mothers, 

parenting, empowerment and s o on. It 

appears there may be money available if I can 

design a study that would hav e definable, 

measurable outcomes. 

I was heartened at a study day recently on 

"Perspectives o n Soc ial Disadvantage and 

Child Health." There were a few excellent 

thinkers and speakers on the links between 

classism, c ollaps ing c apitalis m and c hild 

health and some reports on real successes with 

local initiatives, led by local working-class parents 

in establishing the services they wanted. 

The Region seems well. I am enjoying leading 

more Wygelian leaders' groups, an excellent 

Scottish working-class one two weeks ago. 

Later— 

I am loving my relationships with my Regional 

leaders. We had a good ARPs and 

AARPs day a few weeks ago, business-like and 

effective but very loving, fun and full of friendship 

and comraderie as well. It was very good 

for m e t o get some time with Terry there 

around shifting the hopelessness that seemed 

to have settled on me over a busy, difficult 

Christmas time. I have been able to continue 

discharging well on "everything" and having 

no "either or's" playing in my life; l can have an 

academic life, a clinical life, a political life, a 

love life, a life as a parent and on and on. 

Gill Turner 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England

Leaders Cooperating Thoughtfully 

On April 3-5 l attended the "Mental Health" 

System Survivors' and Allies' Workshop led by 

Janet Foner and assisted by Charlie Kreiner. 

The workshop was informative, fun and very 

powerful. Much information was given out 

about how "mental health" oppression has infiltrated 

and tainted the RC Community, with 

clear examples of ways to weed out the distress 

and help the RC Community reclaim 

completely its correctness. The truth is Co- 

Counseling is the polar opposite of the "mental 

health" system, doing everything to support 

each human being's ability to free up their 

occluded thinking, and to trust their thinking 

no matter how unique or how different it is from 

the "norm." 

What motivated me to write was witnessing 

the incredible harmony, cooperation, love and 

respect shown between Janet and Charlie as 

they worked together throughout the weekend. 

Janet, a brilliant, committed and persevering 

leader on her own, just blossomed with the 

impeccable support from Charlie. She was 

articulate while maintaining a relaxed, playful 

attitude. Charlie's support of Janet and the 

"mental health" liberation movement in RC 

was profound in many ways. The positive effects 

from the work done at this workshop I'm 

sure will be felt internationally. 

Something very important took place at this 

workshop in my opinion. Charlie, a major, 

well-known leader, made the commitment to 

67 

FROM THE MAIL 

assist and support Janet, a not-so-well-known, 

up-and-coming leader. His support was loving, 

sincere and visible for everyone to see, 

and the results were quite good. It was rational 

for both Charlie and Janet, and both of them 

clearly benefited. I'd like to see more of this 

take place in RC. I'd like to see major leaders 

decide to openly support at least one up-andcoming 

leader each year. I'd like to see experienced 

teachers assist a new and inexperienced 

teacher in a class on a regular basis. The 

results from this can only be good. It will inevitably 

boost the confidence of the new teacher 

and help them develop their ability to accept 

support openly. For the experienced teacher or 

leader, they will actively be interrupting any 

patterned pull to be the top leader. The recognition 

that leaders get can be quite addicting, 

you know! Also, there's just something about 

being supportive to another person that is so 

grounding and rewarding to the individual who 

gives the support. To assist another person's 

flourishing is one of the most enjoyable activities 

on the planet, in my opinion. 

It's possible that men will initially get more 

benefits out of being in the supportive role than 

women, just because of the deep roots of sexism, 

men being conditioned to lead and women 

being conditioned to be supportive. Therefore 

different distresses may surface for men and 

women leaders, but it's all dischargeable. 

Marty Klein 

Woodstock, New York, USA

FROM THE MAIL 

SPREADING INITIATIVES IN INDIA 

I just returned from a two-week trip to Bombay 

and Pune. The journey was long and tedious, involving 

two nights and two days each way, but it 

was highly rewarding. I enjoyed the visits. The 

love and support of the Community was nourishing. 

I did a three-day introductory RC workshop at 

Pune organised by Vijaya. She did a marvellous 

job of getting sixteen excellent people together. 

Six of them have attended a few RC sessions before 

and the rest are new to RC. Most of them are 

leaders in the wide world. It was a non-residential 

program from 9 am to 5 pm. About eight of them 

stayed till 8.30 pm. The program had to suit all. 

There were a lot of academic questions, and the 

elite pattern was so strong. Pushing them to feel 

their feelings was a task. We moved from reducing 

prejudice to building closeness. They could see 

the implication of RC in the wide world. Many of 

them expressed a strong desire to take RC to the 

rural community. One of the participants offered 

to translate the literature into Marati. A solid, 

strong Community has emerged. Everyone en- 

What amazing things happen when you let 

them. Yesterday I read and took notes on The 

Human Side of Human Beings. And today I was rereading 

notes I'd made last week about Sights, 

Sounds and Smells in Belize as a journal entry 

while I'm in Peace Corps. What was amazing to 

me was my notes talk of the way my mind "just 

takes it in and files it away. Then I have it to use 

for further analysis of a situation." I had yet to 

read your book and see your explanation of "filing 

cases for memory storage." 

Our words couldn't have been more alike if 

you'd looked over my shoulder and told me 

Parallel Thinking 

joyed, appreciated and benefited through the 

workshop. They are planning for another workshop 

in June. 

The workshop was a challenge to my leadership. 

My attention was good and all my attempts 

worked well. I enjoyed doing it and it has boosted 

my confidence. 

68 

The Bombay Community got together at two 

evenings. Seeing their leadership was inspiring. 

My visit has helped them to come together again 

to move further. 

Sudarshan had organised a workshop at Madras 

last month. There were ten participants. The Madras 

RC group has started to meet regularly. Ganesan 

has offered his place for the meeting and for 

setting up an RC library. Sudarshan's leadership 

and initiative is amazing. I am sure in a year Bombay, 

Pune and Madras each will grow into an 

Area. 

what to write. Actually I shouldn't be "amazed" 

because more and more of my life is "unfolding" 

in similar manners. Being in Peace Corps/Belize 

I have tried to stay open to my surroundings and 

let my mind make its own judgments and not try 

to force things to happen. And ideas, concepts 

"POP" into my mind that are perfect for the time. 

Can you learn Co-Counseling from the Manual? 

I realize group work is what it's about, but if a 

group is not available at the time are there any 

major drawbacks from just studying from the 

book? 

M— 

Danigriga Town, Belize

t9;we F R O M THE MAIL 

Gentile-Jewish Alliances and Personal Growth 

Things have been going quite well in the Region and for me personally too (though I often can't feel 

it). Cherie Brown and I led a powerful, razor's-edge Jews and Gentiles workshop this past weekend. It's 

by far the best thing I've ever led. We had about twenty-five Gentiles there, and I went in there 

determined that they were going to understand, face, feel, and commit to ending anti-Semitism. We met 

separately Friday night, and after introductions I talked about the importance of getting to know each 

other, finding and feeling our pride in our own diverse cultures (it was a pretty diverse group in class, 

race, and religion, though all had been raised or were now Christian), and that in this stage of 

capitalism's collapse it was crucial that we face and act against Jewish oppression. I did a demonstration 

with a devoutly Christian woman basically to make things safe for her in RC, and we knelt and she 

prayed, crying hard, for the situation in Los Angeles. It was very powerful for people. I also worked with 

a working-class man, starting off directly on feelings of anti-Semitism, and it was clear where the 

feelings were connected to his own hurts. He ended the demonstration crying hard about how much he 

loved the Jews he's working with. 

Saturday morning we met separately again and I talked about how anti-Semitism fits into the class 

structure of society. I've been reading up on some of the history, and people were quite surprised by 

some of the things I said. I talked about the two "prongs" of the oppression, both how Jews are pulled by 

the need for security to take unprincipled positions in the society as visible agents (lawyers, social 

workers, shop owners, etc.) and how this is used as an excuse during hard times to attack and persecute 

and scapegoat them. The left usually only notices the collusion, and mainstream Jewish leaders usually 

only notice the insecurity and mistreatment. Both need to be understood and combatted. I also talked 

about relationships between Jews and Gentiles and tried to focus on what I think the key issue is for 

Gentiles: to thoroughly face negative things, to discharge on them, and to do something about them. I 

told some good stories on myself about being a "spaced-out" Gentile while my Jewish wife was fiercely 

focused on a detail that seemed unimportant to me. We Gentiles need to shift in this area, too, and not 

just get impatient with what we see (possibly incorrectly) as Jewish patterns. I worked with a workingclass 

woman who had a long-standing grudge against a Jewish woman. I helped her discharge on hating 

the woman and face that she had these awful feelings. She cried and shook a lot. Then I worked with a 

black man who is beginning to take leadership at his church on black-Jewish relations, on rage about 

the L.A. verdict, and heavy terror around seeing pictures of lynchings in his childhood. 

Then many of us played a terrific game of basketball. 

Saturday afternoon Cherie and I met to discuss and discharge on how things were going so far, and 

decided to change the whole thrust of the workshop, focusing directly on how this issue sits in our own 

Region. The Jews and Gentiles met together and Cherie did a speakout on how she sees things operating 

in our Region since she's moved here, and then she worked with two other Jews and a Gentile woman 

on what's going on here and now: a tendency to "use" the Jewish leaders for the hard work they do 

without thinking about them, and low expectations amongst the Jews. 

In the evening we separated again, and I asked the Gentiles where they were with what had 

happened. I worked with an upper-middle-class woman who felt she didn't have any anti-Semitism but 

who turned out to be quite angry at Cherie. Things led pretty quickly to heavy early abuse, and I think 

the demonstration opened a lot of eyes amongst the Gentiles about denial of this oppression and how 

deeply it sits. Then I worked with a man on early violence. Next I counseled a woman activist on making 

a firm commitment to have Jewish liberation bo central to her own work. Finally I took time in front of 

the group on how pleased I was at my leadership despite my struggles to articulate my thoughts. 

Then we rejoined the Jews and had a time for people to share insights, thoughts, and other things 

they'd learned. After that we had a powerful singing and dancing celebration which I pretty much led 

continued... 

69

FROM THE MAIL 

continued... 

spontaneously: I decided to stay up front with people as they came up to sing, joining in if they wanted, 

helping them think about what they wanted to do, giving them attention. It was fun. One group got up 

and sang "Donna Donna," a song about the Holocaust which in my opinion is oppressive and blames 

the victims. I started singing "Boner boner boner" along with it and got several people to join in 

hilariously. I suppose we interrupt things however we can think oft 

Sunday morning Cherie led a class on leadership and did two demonstrations, one with a Jewish 

woman on interrupting and counseling her friends on "disliking" her Jewish friends, and one with a 

black woman on interrupting Gentile and white shame and bland "this is normal" patterns in RC. 

I think I've finally taken seriously the direction Harvey gave me a couple years ago to claim my full 

excellence and to require greatness of myself. My men's work is moving quite well: we're continuing to 

get large groups for my two classes and the support group, and the diversity is starting to improve. I've 

made a decision (a promise to Dan Simpson, actually) to take on disability issues as central in my men's 

work, and coincidentally to that decision one of the men built a ramp for our meeting place. I also have 

an agreement with my best musician buddy to perform together within six months, so we're rehearsing 

weekly and pulling together a set of men's songs (including a hilarious medley of Walt Disney songs). 

Despite all the music directing I did, I've never actually played in a band before, and I'm having a ball. 

Also I have been writing some gorgeous instrumental music on my synthesizer and I'm starting to look 

into record companies that might be interested. 

I "WASN'T THERE 

Thanks for the article "Don't Take it Personally." 

As a daughter and mother myself, caught in 

a perpetrator pattern over and over again, I can 

assure you "not there" is an excruciatingly accurate 

description of where I am when I want to 

hurt my own flesh and blood. 

Your stru -l 

e out has benefited my daughter 

who is now seventeen years old and full of intelligence 

and promise as well as pain. 

/ I 

K— 

Ohio, USA 

70 

Ed Rejuney 

Kensington, Maryland, USA

STAYING ACTIVE E F F E C T I V E DURING LAYOFFS 

Although worries about money and unemployment 

are weighing on people, the relationships 

at work have never been better, and we've 

kept in touch dur ing this period o f layoffs. 

There's still internalized oppression of course, 

but the level of mutual respect has increased 

while tensions and pressures have decreased. 

There have been more moments of enjoying each 

other during the workday than there used to be, 

and some people have commented on the change 

in atmosphere. 

In January I decided to invite seven of the production 

workers to meet with me after work at 

Carmen's house a few miles from our shop. I said 

that the purpose was to talk about how to give 

our families and friends better emotional support. 

(They know that I go to counseling workshops 

because when I've been asked about my 

weekend trips, I've told them what I do.) All 

seven agreed to come. When we left work on the 

appointed day, it was great to see us break the 

daily habit we had had for years of each going 

our separate ways—this time a caravan of cars 

and trucks formed, heading out together for 

Carmen's house. Six of us showed up at this first 

meeting. ( T wo people changed their minds 

about coming.) 

Since we all had to work the next day, and 

most had families to get home to, our meeting 

was set for one hour. I talked for about ten minutes 

about the need all people have for attention 

from others and being listened to, how most 

people don't have this need met and why, and 

then explained the ideas of taking turns, equal 

time and giving good attention. We then divided 

the rest of the time, and although people were 

shy about having a turn, there was also a good 

amount of joking and laughing. Having the option 

of responding to questions from me worked 

well when someone couldn't think of what to 

talk about. It was felt by most people that translation 

wasn't necessary, so we just spoke in whatever 

language we felt like Spanish or English— 

and only translated when someone asked. We 

were three Mexicanas, one Mexicano, one 

Guatemalteca, a n d o n e A r a b I t a l i a n 

-People U S eshared r . things about themselves and their 

lives, and several expressed surprise that the 

71 

FROM THE MAIL 

time passed so quickly. Pizza was served to finish 

off the hour. 

The second meeting was held a month later at 

Emesto's house so his wife Alicia could attend. 

They liv e in the main manufacturing area of 

northeast Los Angeles where members of my 

family worked in the 1 

5good 0 s to athink n d that 1a 

support group was happen- 

6ing 0here. s , Ernesto and Alicia have a Spanish-style 

house that beautifully reflects pride in their heri- 

a 

tage. A 

n 

clock 

d 

that belonged to Emesto's father in 

iMexico t sits up on the mantle. Seven of us gath- 

wered around a the s room. (As beer was served to a 

few people, I remembered the first fundamentals 

class at the Arab workshop in Cyprus where 

nothing was said about the cigarette smoke.) I 

reviewed the ideas from the first meeting and 

then introduced the idea of discharging distress/ 

desahogar la angustia. One mistake I made here 

was putting too much emphasis on all of us 

needing to discharge—this only seemed to increase 

people's shyness. Next time I plan to put 

the emphasis back on our roles as listeners and 

allowing discharge in others. Still, I was fairly 

relaxed a n d asked good questions dur ing 

people's turns, and people shared well. Alic ia 

invited us to stay for dinner and so we got to 

enjoy a good meal together outside of work, 

which was a nice change. 

rye started visiting Zaven's new workplace in 

northeast L.A. (where he has been working since 

leaving our shop about a year ago) and have 

been getting to know some of his co-workers. It's 

an Armenian-owned business w i t h a b o u t 

twenty-five people working there, most of them 

from Armenia, Iran and Egypt. It's a very different 

atmosphere from any other machine shop 

I've been in—more relaxed and close. People 

seem to feel free to stop work and talk together at 

any time without looking over their shoulders. 

On Fridays at quitting time, all the workers 

gather outside for a barbecue and socializing. 

The machinists Zaven introduced me to were 

very welcoming and seemed pleased that I knew 

things about different individuals (from past 

conversations with Zaven). Some of them knew 

me too, saying they hear about me all the time 

(from the same source). I'm looking forward to 

getting to know them better. c o n t i n u e d . . .

FROM THE MAIL 

continued... 

Zaven and I continue to get together once a 

month to play basketball at the park and talk. 

The last time we went, another man neither of us 

knew came over, struck up a conversation and 

talked for a long time in Armenian. I noticed 

how well Zaven listened. Afterwards I asked 

him what the man had said, and he told me "all 

kinds of things about his family, etc.—he needed 

to discharge and found an opportunity." He 

went on to say that this often happens to him 

now, and that people discharge a lot. He's a good 

example for me of being natural about it. We go 

over a little more theory each time—lately the 

four things a counselor does and what contradictions 

are. Afterwards we spend time with his 

family, and it's obvious they are hearing about 

the theory as well. 

The peace and justice group at my church is 

almost seven years old now and has taken the 

form of a support group for about four years. It 

has been a place where the handful of us in the 

parish who are active around liberation issues 

could remind each other that we're not alone, 

share ideas and information and have the opportunity 

to work on projects together—which 

we've done. We've been visible in the parish and 

in our region of the archdiocese. During the last 

year I've attempted to raise and deal with issues 

that seemed to be keeping us less effective than 

we could be and isolated from each other. We've 

dealt head-on with how classism works in society 

and the role of anti-Jewish oppression, which 

led to some good experience-sharing, and have 

also discussed "mental health" system survivor 

and incest survivor issues, which scared people. 

I was hoping the latter topics would loosen up 

the controls on closeness and discharge in the 

group, and one person did get to her tears, but 

for the most part people's fear held on. 

At a recent meeting I proposed we use the 

time to discuss the group, and people used the 

opportunity to express a lot of negative feelings 

they had been holding back about how the group 

was going. Although a part of what I listened to 

was distress, I also heard some important things. 

One thing is that I need to make "naturalized 

RC" even more natural (I keep forgetting how 

certain ideas sound to people who don't have the 

whole theory) and I want to provide more contradiction 

to fear and other distress by re-emerging 

from my own. Also, I need to elicit the 

72 

group's thinking more before making proposals 

and build on what people already know. (I'm 

understanding better the unwor k ability o f 

"doing the thinking for the group.") Our new, revised 

group will, by general agreement, retain 

the practice of taking turns. 

Horace Williams has been doing an excellent 

series of workshops on black-Korean relations. 

These two communities have been having a 

rough time together in Los Angeles, and the 

workshops have been giving people a glimpse of 

what is possible by bringing participants closer 

and illuminating the nature of oppression. The 

response has been very positive. Horace has been 

having a good influence through the church in 

other ways too: the local Catholic newspaper, of 

which he is a board member, is starting to include 

progressive viewpoints occasionally; an 

informal support group of eight to ten people 

that he led one evening included a prominent 

U.S. Catholic leader. Horace also continues 

building black RC, teaching RC classes and 

doing outreach for future classes. His students 

are moving forward in their leadership and reemergence. 

I've been following up the contacts I made in 

the Arab community a year ago and now have 

reliable, ongoing contact in my local part of Los 

Angeles. Adele has been extremely busy with 

her work, but when we do talk, it's usually a 

good conversation of up to an hour. She has put 

me in touch with the Palestine Aid Society which 

recently opened its regional office in Pasadena 

(PAS does educational and fund-raising work 

and supports various humanitarian projects in 

the West Bank and Gaza). I've become a member 

and volunteer and am enjoying the familiarity of 

the culture and language. One of the local leaders 

is a California-born Palestinian woman who I 

seem to have a lot in common with as far as 

similar cultural experiences, internal struggles 

we've gone through related to religion (she was 

raised Muslim), and commitment to our peoples. 

We've gotten off to a good start. 

In the Los Angeles Region last fall I convened 

and was Consultant for three Wygelian leaders' 

meetings for three major sections of the working 

class: currently pink-collar/blue-collar workers, 

currently white-collar workers, and artists. (The 

previous year we had just one meeting for the

general working class.) There were three of us at 

the pink-collar/blue-collar meeting (a part-time 

clerical worker/factory worker, a carpenter, and 

a machinist). It was interesting to hear people 

describe the current situation as we saw it from 

our particular occupations. The white-collar 

group included a social worker, a hospital manager 

and part-time university professor, an elementary 

school teacher, and a computer programmer. 

What stood out to me about this group 

was the clarity around class issues, which 

seemed to be the result of varied life experiences 

and persistent counseling on classism. There 

were seven artists at the artists' meeting (eight if 

I include myself as a freelance writer) representing 

mediums such as photography, sculpture, 

mural-painting, design, screenwriting, performance 

art, crafts, etc. Getting a glimpse of the 

significant influence this group of workers is 

having in L.A. and beyond was an outstanding 

My class is going well. I am still very busy with 

non-RC books I (co)wrote and that will be published 

this year. The one mentioned before on the 

skin, basic pathology and dermatology, will be 

published April 29. In July at the world AIDSmeeting, 

held in Amsterdam this year, a book will 

be presented for which I wrote three chapters on 

three different families of viruses. It will also be 

available in English. Some of the material in the 

book is very good and it is written well. 

At the end of the year another book will be 

published on travelling medicine. I am the editor.! 

like the subject a lot, but to be honest, I have also 

worked on it to earn some money and to be able to 

cooperate with some other people. 

Last, the medical psychology department has 

asked me to assist with an ongoing project to educate 

patients so they can make better decisions 

for themselves concerning different options in 

treatment, for instance in cancer therapy. To me 

this seems a big challenge, but an interesting challenge. 

It will imply probably some battles with the 

medical establishment. 

MY SAILS ARE FILLING 

73 

FROM THE MAIL 

highlight of this meeting. I'm proud of the working 

people we have in Los Angeles RC. 

Setting up one-to-one sessions with RC teachers 

and potential working-class leaders in the 

Region has been another good way to build relationships 

and, in the long run, move class issues 

forward. At this point our machine shop support 

group—outside RC—and one artists' group are 

the only workers' support groups I know of in 

the Region (I think there are also some parents' 

groups going on). 

During the past year we've had over twenty 

inches of rain in Los Angeles, which is well above 

normal, and patches of green are still visible 

around the city, especially in the hills by the 

Arroyo Seco where I live. My health is good and 

I'm doing well at keeping it that way. 

Wind in the sails finally. 

Victor Nicassio 

Los Angeles, California, USA 

This education/communication/patient-centered 

area might be a good area for me to really 

start flourishing. Also I see perspectives to unmedicalize 

certain things and to put forward "the 

quality of living" as is the jargon that is used in the 

Netherlands in this area. 

Erik Fokke 

Amsterdam, The Netherlands 

photo by Arm Steele

FROM THE MAIL 

Dear Harvey, 

Here in Orange County, things are really going 

well. In fact, I think that you may consider making 

it an Area. Since you were here two years ago we 

have held a number of Wygelian leaders' meetings 

(Dan Kwong honored us by leading one of 

them) with positive results. Mary-Linn just finished 

teaching a fundamentals class. I am in the middle 

of teaching one, and we are cooperating on a 

teachers' and leaders' class with twelve very strong 

counselors. 

Two leaders, Tim Swiecicki and David Armendariz, 

are in the process of obtaining teacher's certification 

and plan on teaching classes shortly. 

Tera Alston has been leading a number of support 

groups and is ready to teach her own class. (She 

wants to wait until my class finishes, because she 

is assisting there presently.) I see six more people 

getting close to becoming assistants or even teachng. 

We have now about thirty-five active counselors. 

I have never seen so many good people so 

excited about RC here in Orange County. It is very 

satisfying. 

One of problems we have been trying to solve is 

that some people in our fundamentals classes 

have not been getting good enough or enough 

sessions. We have therefore asked each of the 

Solid Work in Orange County 

I wish to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed 

the workshop that you held here in January. An 

absolute highlight was your insistence that as 

clients we have often been rehearsing and rehearsing 

in our sessions, and that one replay of the 

distress is more than sufficient for the counselor to 

start working on finding and offering contradictions. 

"We must rediscover that reality from which we 

become separated as the formal knowledge we 

substitute for it grows in thickness and imperviousness—that 

reality which there is grave danger we 

may die without having known, and which is simply 

our life." 

Marcel Proust 

74 

experienced counselors to "sponsor" one or more 

beginners by having sessions with and teaching 

these people one-to-one (in addition to class). This 

is working very well. 

In the leaders' class we have also been organizing 

four-way intensives. This was Tera's idea, and it 

has been successful in addressing individual reemergence. 

In a recent one of these, the client 

asked for some assistance for getting attention 

away from distress. At that precise moment a 6.9 

earthquake hit Southern California! What more 

can you ask for? 

From a personal point of view, I have finally 

found a way in which I, with no hesitation, can 

espouse RC theory to anyone I care for. I used this 

approach in outreach for my existing fundamentals 

class and got a number of people interested 

(even if they did not all end up in class this time 

around). The trick has been to present the point of 

view that the purpose of RC is to assist people in 

creating more accurate models of reality, particularly 

in a number of areas where the profitoriented 

society has discouraged a scientific approach, 

or outright encouraged distorted models 

to be accepted. Most people whom I would like to 

attract to RC agree that this is pro-survival and 

worthwhile, and can accept the notion of a distress 

recording as a hindrance to such endeavor. 

This approach may not work for everyone trying to 

reach out, but it has enabled me to talk about RC 

without any Ehhs and Hmms. I like it! 

Luci Solomon was here this weekend for a day 

workshop on sharpening counseling skills. She 

was very popular and did a splendid job! We'll try 

to entice Dan to visit us in the near future. 

Allan Hansen 

Westminster, California, USA

CONTINUING INSPIRATION FROM A WORKSHOP 

I went to the 'Creating a 

Classless Society' Workshop in 

London last year, and left with 

inspiration that has stayed with 

me and kept me moving forwards 

since then, so that I can 

look back and see that weekend 

as a landmark in my re-emergence. 

This workshop was exceptional, 

a wonderful amorphous 

creature of a workshop, hundreds 

o f people discharging 

and th i n ki n g a n d ta ki n g 

charge. The reality of such a 

large number of people who 

believe that humans are good 

and know how to reclaim that 

goodness, is a crucial contradiction 

to the isolation that living 

in our oppressive society 

breeds. I'm so glad that I chose 

this as my first taste of RC on a 

wide scale. The fact that people 

involved in RC are committed 

to and have a vision of a new, 

no limits society, is the most 

exciting thing about it for me. 

Harvey beautifully modelled 

of relaxed optimism and conviction 

that change is not only 

possible but inevitable. How I 

had been waiting fo r that! 

Many times since the weekend 

I have found myself expressing 

the same knowledge around 

the 'determined hopelessness' I 

encounter. I've been surprising 

myself by discovering a pool of 

optimism in me and saying 

what I really feel, where before 

the fear that I would be scorned 

or attacked stopped me. (Here, 

memories come drifting back of 

being laughed at at school for 

expressing my opinion that 

world leaders are not stupid 

enough to blow us all up with 

nuclear weapons.) 

So far, the scorn just has not 

materialised. People are pulled 

up short by my simple contradiction 

to the mass hopelessness 

which w e i n Britain 

struggle with and dramatise. 

The reactions I have received 

have mainly been a sort of fascination 

at my enthusiastic belief 

that things are due to collapse 

and ready to be replaced. 

If it wasn't for the fact that we 

have all been made to feel so 

powerless and hence unable to 

imagine anything different 

from what we are given, the 

logic of this belief would surely 

be obvious. I had a very real 

sense that everyone I spoke to 

wanted me to hold onto this 

hope and voice it on their behalf; 

that expressing this contradiction 

is one of the most important 

things I can do. 

During the days that followed 

the workshop, I noticed 

that I had made a decision to 

take responsibility. For me, 

something shifted. It's the 

knowledge that I can make a 

difference, that my powerlessness 

is a convenient myth, that I 

can choose to be part of the solution 

to this unacceptable society. 

It feels like deciding to 

believe that I am an adult, and 

embrace all that that means. It 

means nobody else is going to 

do it and I'd better stop waiting 

around for that to happen. It 

feels great! What a relief to 

climb out of that passive, lifedraining 

state. 

(Of course, when I really 

know that I'm completely pow- 

75 

FROM THE MAIL 

erful my life will look completely 

different—but I'm getting 

glimpses of it and finding 

ways to keep re-enforcing this 

particular piece of reality. Writing 

my thoughts and experiences 

and making them more 

public is one way.) 

I think the main result of this 

shift after the workshop was to 

make me take my re-emergence 

seriously. In the context of my 

determination to change the 

world, I really have to get on 

with it and become everything I 

am; stop messing about in the 

muddy puddles of my distress, 

whingeing about how confusing 

it is and how I don't know 

how to clean it up, and start 

ruthlessly tackling it. It works! 

I'm taking more responsibility 

for my sessions and my life, and 

gaining clarity around my distress 

in leaps and bounds. 

In a session recently where I 

was working on acting powerfully, 

my counsellor and I put 

together a commitment for me 

that says, 'From now on I decide 

that I will do whatever I 

need to do to make my life 

right.' This reminds me that 

everything Ido is ultimately for 

my own benefit, and that I can 

get my life right. It keeps my 

attention on my goals, and 

somehow seems to lift me out 

of my middle-class confusion. 

Whenever I feel that I don't 

know what to do, I use my 

commitment and find myself 

clear after all. This suggests to 

me that in some way I have allowed 

my confusion to stay in 

place in order to avoid taking 

responsibility. Being confused 

continued...

FROM THE MAIL 

continued... 

means that I don't have to acknowledge 

that really I do 

know what is going on and 

what I need to do. It's about not 

wanting to admit that I know 

what to do and still don't do it. I 

want to deny that gap, avoid 

the shame that we all feel for 

not being our true powerful 

selves. I wonder if other middle-class 

people will recognise 

this? Decisive, loving counselling 

that does not respect the 

confusion pattern is needed 

here. It takes courage to turn 

away from the addictive pull 

and familiarity of distress and 

face reality in all its dazzling, 

terrifying clarity. 

Looking at my personal distress 

from the wider place of 

the world and my place in it, I 

can see it spread out and in a 

sense insignificant. Here, I have 

to be careful because this view 

has similarities to some of my 

chronic patterns. My middleclass 

pattern tells me that my 

own distress is insignificant, 

but from a different, oppressive 

place. It's telling me my distress 

and me are one and the same, 

my distress is unimportant in 

the same way I am. This other, 

more rational look at it separates 

the two, says, 'Do not respect 

the distress. Do not ignore 

and and avoid it through fear. 

It's obvious you are bigger than 

it. Get in there and pull it apart.' 

There is still some other distress 

that lingers in this new, 

improved approach to my reemergence. 

I'm giving myself 

permission to really look after 

myself and clean up my distress 

in the context of my responsibility 

to get out there and 

change the world. The motivation 

is partly that familiar, 

selfless middle-class pattern. 

I'm not really doing this for me. 

Amazing how we cling to that 

one! Or, more accurately, how 

it clings to us. These patterns 

don't g i ve u p w i th o u t a 

struggle. They attach themselves 

to whatever they can. 

However, if riding that one 

into battle is what it takes, so be 

it. It's a huge improvement on 

being stuck doing nothing. And 

it is motivating me to counsel 

on my pretence pattern and 

feelings of worthlessness and 

uselessness, so it may be the 

death of itself! I know it is for 

me that I choose to do this, 

whatever else my pattern tries 

to contort me into believing. 

I think looking at pretence is 

vital for each of us to re-emerge 

because it sits on the outside of 

our distress holding it in place. 

We have all learned to survive 

by pretending things are not as 

bad as they really are, and by 

giving in at a certain point in 

our young lives to the pretence 

that distress is normal and 

right. For me as a middle-class 

woman the issue of pretence is 

more immediate than it is for 

some, as it is such a pervasive 

and obvious middle-class pattern. 

Over Christmas I went to 

Thailand for a month, on my 

own. This has been another 

turning point for me in my reemergence. 

Apart from helping 

me to learn a great deal about 

my English identity, it brought 

me right up against my chronic 

patterns, especially pretence. I 

felt constantly restimulated 

there, and particularly noticed 

how my brain ceased functioning 

when I was restimulated. 

Making a decision was incredibly 

difficult, and my pretense 

76 

about being always capable 

was blown right open. Since 

then I have never quite been 

able to regain my comfortable 

pretence pattern and my life 

has changed dramatically as a 

result. 

I have started to act more on 

my long-stated aim to 'slow 

down,' as I am sure that it is 

only when we stop and are still 

that we can see, evaluate, take 

opportunities, and truly act. 

Action must arise from stillness. 

Slowing down is about giving 

up the pretence of being 

active and therefore powerful. I 

have found that when I interrupt 

my own busy-ness, a feeling 

of emptiness and extreme 

discomfort surges towards me. 

I panic and desperately want to 

move, do something before the 

full force of those worthless 

feelings descends on me. I have 

to decide again and again to 

stay still and face them. 

Worthlessness looks to me 

like a combination of two other 

distress patterns: feeling like a 

bad person and feeling powerless. 

It goes back to that desperate, 

powerless little girl who 

has been made to suspect that 

there is something fundamentally 

rotten and bad about herself. 

My pretence pattern wants 

so much to ignore her and push 

her out of the way. Clearly that 

pattern's purpose is to keep me 

from my real power, which 

depends on discharging the 

distress I'm busily trying to ignore. 

While I've been working on 

my own feelings of worthlessness, 

I have noticed more and 

more how much this distress

underlies others' activities too. 

We cover up, disguise, or ease 

the discomfort of these feelings 

by 'doing'; by being active in 

whatever we choose, 'proving' 

we are good and useful and 

powerful. Compulsive doing is 

very much a feature of all sec- 

tions of current capitalist society; 

those who are upholding it 

and those who are attempting 

to change it. I believe that slowing 

down, and confronting 

those 'I am nothing' feelings 

that will certainly emerge is 

something we all must do if our 

Yes, Pain Discharges Permanently 

I broke my ankle in February of 1991 and was 

fortunate enough to have done so surrounded by 

Co-Counselors. I was able to discharge immediately 

on the physical pain and fear. The injury required 

surgery and as soon as possible afterwards 

I resumed counseling on the accident, telling 

the story over and over again with many 

tears and great yawns. I was able to schedule two 

to three sessions a day for several weeks, so a lot 

of work was done around the injury and old 

emotional hurts that were restimulate& A lot of 

chronic distress was certainly readily available 

for discharge. 

A second surgery was performed in October 

of 1991 to remove the metal plate, screws, and 

some scar tissue from my ankle. U wrote an article 

about that and it was in the April Present 

Time.) I had not actually intended to go without 

post-operative pain medication but thought that 

I would go as long as I possibly could. The pain 

got pretty bad but I was able to discharge well all 

day and ended up taking no post-operative pain 

medication at all. 

I just had surgery again on my ankle three 

days ago. It was comparable with the October 

1991 surgery, two incisions, removal of scar tissues 

(only more this time), and removal of some 

bone. It was done with a spinal block with no 

pre- or post-operative medication (mind- or 

mood-altering drugs or pain killers). I shook and 

yawned plenty in surgery and the recovery 

77 

FROM THE MAIL 

world changing is to have the 

sincerity and strength to succeed. 

It must come from the 

security of each of our own selfworth. 

Jassy Denison 


room. The surprising and puzzling part was the 

lack of pain from the surgery. I had a backache 

due to a muscle spasm, probably caused by being 

in an awkward position during the surgery, and 

a dull ache in my anide. My back bothered me far 

more than my ankle, which never hurt. I spent 

the day telling about the surgery, complaining 

about the discomfort in my back, and laUghing 

and visiting with my Co-Counselors. Discharge 

was mostly limited to yawns. 

I was much more confident in the process of 

discharging on physical pain and in myself using 

the process. I wasn't very anxious about the 

surgery or pain this time. I'm delighted but 

somewhat mystified by the results. Something 

obviously worked very well. I certainly hadn't 

anticipated that the discharge of fear from the 

previous surgery would carry over to this one. 

I'm sure I discharged on the previous incidents 

enough to prevent too much additional distress 

from piling on top of already accumulated distress 

so perhaps there wasn't much to be restimulate& 

I didn't have a lot of fear about the pain 

being more than I could handle or fear about not 

taking pain medication soon enough and then it 

not working because I had waited too long (old 

myths that exacerbate our fears about pain!!). I 

know that a big part of pain is fear but this makes 

me think that it's a much larger portion than I 

had even imagined. 

Linda Grayson Bernstein 

Shreveport, Louisiana, USA

FROM THE MAIL 

So Wot's All This Area Business Anyhow? 

I always thought an Area was something that 

there was just one of in a capital city, and Area 

Reference Person was a job I was grateful that 

somebody else did. If necessary I'd be prepared to 

do it, but as long as somebody else seemed happy 

to do it, I was more than happy not to. 

Then I taught my first class. Nobody had been 

teaching or leading anything much in Melbourne at 

the time. I wanted my friends to learn to counsel, 

so eventually it dawned on me that I was the one to 

teach them. Ten people did the class, and since 

most of them were close to me, they tended to 

catch on straight away to what a difference this 

thing could make to their lives. At the end, their 

lovers and friends who'd been looking on with 

interest, wanted to do it too. I could see that, had I 

not been about to move to Sydney, they would 

have formed the natural core of my next class. 

Luckily by then a couple of others had begun to 

teach in Melbourne (and a couple of support 

groups—including one formed out of that first 

class—had sprung up). 

I began to see how nice it was to build a 

counselling Community around me. It meant that 

the people I like most in the wide world could use 

this best of tools to set their lives to rights. It 

helped a lot with making the time we spend together 

go well, but there was more to it than this. I had 

pulled them together as a group. They were establishing 

new counselling relationships with each 

other. The thinking of any one of us about another, 

is improved by hearing the thinking or watching the 

counselling of a third or fourth person. We found 

commonalities and differences that helped see our 

own and others' patterns from new angles. 

When I moved to Sydney, I thought more about 

what this word "community" means. In Sydney we 

are lucky to have a large number of support groups. 

(In fact, Harvey's guess is that it is a record number 

for a city this size!) Having been a part of three 

other RC Communities, with never more than the 

odd support group here and there, I was in a good 

position to see what a difference it makes. There is 

something solid, something larger-than-the-sumof-the-parts, 

about it. Partly it contradicts some 

distress patterns (easier to notice you're not alone, 

easier to notice things are moving), but also it reflects 

some undistressed truths about human 

beings: we do need to involve everyone in our liberation 

project; we do like to reach out and have a lot 

to do with a big group of people, and to take into 

account the other big groups of people that each of 

78 

d't 

them has to do with. You know how people in front 

of big workshops often discharge as soon as the 

leader so much as looks at them? Well, living your 

life in the context of a network of interrelated committed 

counselling relationships is a bit like having 

that workshop effect running through all the parts 

of your life: the expectations of all that good attention 

and thinking about you are enough to make a 

difference. 

Since coming to Sydney a year and a half ago, I 

have taught four different groups of people to 

counsel in fundamentals classes, and have in addition 

set up a number of close counselling relationships. 

Through sessions, phone time, support 

groups I lead, ongoing classes, and workshops, we 

stay in touch; and I notice that I am in the centre of 

a supportive, committed Community, all reaching 

toward liberation and re-emergence, and giving 

each other a hand as we go. 

Naturally with such a precious thing as this, I 

want to see that it keeps growing and goes well. So 

my idea of what an RC Area is, changed. It changed 

from something pre-existing, to something I could 

build up around me myself. And my idea of what an 

Area Reference Person is, changed from a job 

someone might hand me, to something that 

emerges naturally from what I'm already doing. 

Formalising it just makes it clearer to everyone 

what's going on. 

A few weeks ago, nine of us met together with 

Jonathan Shaw and did this. Most of the people I 

lead live in Leichhardt Municipality (i.e. Glebe, 

Camperdown, Annandale, Rozelle, Balmain, Lilyfield, 

Leichhardt), or in the northern suburbs, so 

we're calling the Area "Leichhardt Municipality & 

North." Of course, geography doesn't strictly define 

who we are in community with, but it does 

make sense to aim to maximise personal contact 

whilst minimising travel time, and also to draw on 

our wide world contacts to build our RC Communities. 

My wide world work is with the residents of 

Leichhardt Municipality. I envisage the northern 

suburbs becoming a separate Area in the medium 

near future, and further on every suburb of Sydney 

becoming its own Area. The meeting agreed to 

have myself and Anthony Geraghty as Area Reference 

Person and Alternate Area Reference Person, 

respectively. 

Jenni Dail 

Balmain, New South Wales, Australia 

reprinted from the newsletter for the Sydney RC Area 

of Leichhardt Municipality & North

Acsent m e :No. 88 (Vol, 24 - Re-evaluation Counseling

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