Disclaimer: "This glossary was prepared for my own use in teaching and presenting RC, and should not be considered in any way as an 'Official' RC Glossary. You are free to copy and use this material for your own use as long as this disclaimer is included" -- David A. Lillie (anti-spam address: davey at greens dot org).

Addiction:  an artificial, irrational, compulsive means to ease our hurts (avoid feeling re-stimulated and present time pain) and frozen needs, in the attempt to "feel better", instead of discharging our distresses and truly improving our lives. Addiction only helps us feel better for a short time and usually leaves us worse off than when we started. It is possible to get rid of any addiction by discharging the distress recordings on which it is based, and then act rationally to improve our lives according to our real needs and desires. Examples:  addiction to alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, drugs, pornography, sex, work, irrational consumerism, irrational eating.

Adultism: Oppression of Young People (from the day they are born), based on their age, by care givers (who are used as the oppression agents) and by the society and its institutions. Because of the long history of adultism and its pervasive nature in our societies, essentially all people suffer from this oppression, and the resulting internalized oppression  and distress patterns are severe. The oppression is expressed, for example, by treating the young person as weak, helpless and less intelligent.  For many, there is verbal or physical abuse and sexual abuse. Oppression of young people conditions them to accept all other oppressions that exist in the society.  In RC, "young people" are people from 0 to about 13 years old, "young adults" are 14 - 30 years old, "adults are 30 - 49 years old, and "elders" from 50 years up.  These categories are sometimes used to form support groups or for workshops specific to an age group.

Agism: see Oppression of Old People.

Ally: a person that supports the good functioning and reemergence of another person, usually someone with a different "identity." The ally encourages the persons s/he decides to be an ally to, assists them in discharging their distresses, and helps them function well in their lives. In family workshops, for example, in addition to the parents, there is always at least one ally for each young person at the workshop.  There are also workshops for Jews and Allies, Men and Allies, etc.

Alternate Area Reference Person (AARP): a person chosen by the ARP to assume the ARP's duties when they are unable to perform.  For example when the ARP is sick or traveling.

Attention Out: See ups and outs.

Appreciation: noticing and commenting on some inherent nature quality of another person or yourself -- called Self-Appreciation. May be used as a direction to bring about discharge or as a means of becoming more present.

Area Reference Person (ARP): an experienced co-counselor who has been chosen to lead an RC community in a particular geographic area, usually a town or part of a city.

Attention:  the act or faculty of mentally concentrating on another person, in preference to other stimuli. Paying close, loving attention to another person contradicts distress patterns created by lack of attention from other loved ones in the person's past and also contradicts isolation.  Taking turns giving and receiving such attention is the basis for the co-counseling relationship.

Balance of Attention: when a person is thinking about an old hurt, but is also aware that the present situation is secure and supportive. Contrasted with being sunk or not in present time reality at all. Necessary for effective discharge to take place.

Benign Reality: our environment as it really exists. This is what we would experience if we were completely free of distress recordings (patterns), each of which somehow distorts or numbs our perception. In reality, the world is a completely loving, safe place, for which we are well suited and to which we are completely connected.

Blue Pages: refers to the requirement now called "No Socializing" (establishing any other relationship -- social, romantic, business, etc. -- than that of co-counselor) with people whom one meets in Co-counseling. Once printed on blue paper in the Fundamentals of Co-Counseling Manual, now page 35.

Chronic Pattern, Chronic: a pattern, which has been with us so long we are no longer aware of it -- it just seems like who we ARE. "I'm just a grumpy person. I can't do math. I don't like children."

Class Identity: in RC, your class identity is generally assumed to be whatever class your parents or guardians were in when you were being raised.  Thus if your parents were poor, working class people, you would be considered working class even if you ended up being in the middle class as an adult.

Class Society: a structure of society in which one group of people (class) oppresses and use other groups, and has better access to the resources of the society, relying on the excuse of a better organization of production. There are at least three types of class societies: slave society, feudal society and capitalistic society.  The classes of society are referred to in RC as
1. working class (and/or raised poor) - people who work with their hands in direct labor (often called lower class or "blue collar" in the wide world),  and who probably have the lowest incomes and least resources.
2. middle class - people who manage others and/or don't work directly with their hands and have higher incomes (often called "white collar" in the wide world).  Many considered in this class are actually working class.
3. owning class - people who own most of the resources, means of production and wealth (often called upper class, wealthy, rich, bosses, etc. in the wide world)

Classism: oppression of one class in the society by another class in power, usually oppression of working class by owning class (see class society).

Client: person being listened to in a co-counseling session. The client is free to process whatever is necessary in order to re-emerge, or to do active thinking, planning, etc., and when the time agreed upon is up, roles are exchanged and the client becomes the counselor.

Clienting: acting like a client (awarely or unawarely), "taking time" without the agreement of the other person to be counselor. This is in contrast to a session, in which both people agree to divide time and choose who will start first as client.

Co-counseling: a session where at least two people exchange roles of client and counselor with equal time for each.  Sessions with more than two people are referred to as "two-ways, three-ways, " etc.

Commitment: a statement said by the client to commit or decide to doing something or to refrain from doing something. A counseling technique. Usually phrased as: "from this moment on I decide to be / to do / to remember that... and this means that..." the counselor encourages the client to repeat the commitment a number of times in order to bring up discharge. There are a number of general commitments and commitments for most liberation groups which are available in RC publications. It is also good to create specific commitments for a specific client to contradict specific distresses.  Sometimes it is only necessary for the counselor to state the commitment and the client will discharge.

Community, RC Community:  a group of at least 30 co-counselors in a particular geographic area that have organized and chosen a leader, called the Area Reference Person.  Communities may sponsor RC events such as workshops, Fundamentals and On-going classes, gather-ins, etc.

Conditioning:  (also a psychological concept) installing a pattern (through repetitive, consistent hurts) that prevents the individual from acting on the basis of her/his own free and flexible thinking, and instead, accept the distressed demands/behavior of other people in the society as "normal." Conditioning is the intended purpose in certain situations, as in military training, so that the targeted people will respond to these situations as expected from them, in certain rigid ways, with no flexible thinking, even at the risk of their own life.

Contradiction, Contradicting a Pattern: anything (attention, word, phrase, action, being close, picture, music, etc.) that lets the client know a pattern is not present time reality. Always leads to discharge when done effectively.

Control Pattern: habitual movement or action that tends to suppress feelings coming up due to restimulation (pulling hair, covering face with hands, jerking legs, etc.)

Counseling Techniques:  methods of counseling that have been used many times and found to be effective. These are general guidelines for the counselor, and should not be used as cookbook recipes. The counselor should always trust his/her flexible, creative thinking and adapt the technique to the specific session, client and distress. See some examples (role exchange, understatement, reality agreement).

Counselor: the person who is paying loving attention to the client. Always stays present, listens without interruption, notices patterns and underlying distress, provides contradiction to distress (mainly by loving attention, closeness), supports client during

Demo, Demonstration: one-way counseling in front of a group, e.g. class or workshop.

Direction: something a client agrees to do or say, usually at the suggestion of the counselor, that contradicts a pattern to bring discharge.

Directive Counseling: counseling mode in which the counselor takes a lot of initiative in leading the session and gives active counseling (also see permissive counseling). The directive mode becomes necessary when the client cannot recognize his/her pattern or can't create a contradiction for it or use it consistently (especially when working on chronic patterns), thus the counselor needs to take the initiative and use active techniques like commitments, role playing, role exchange. The counselor may have to act more assertively when the client (or rather, his/her patterns) does not agree to the directions given by the counselor ("it's not a good direction", "I don't like it", "you don't understand"...).

Discharge: present time display of emotion, which releases the distress, removes patterns -- the outward signs that healing is occurring. This process is dependably indicated by animated talking (nervousness), laughing (light fear), crying (grief), shaking (terror), sweating - temperature changes (various fears), bored talking (last remnants), yawning or body movements (physical hurts). See also Dramatization.

Distress, Distress Recording:  information  registered (recorded) in our mind during a hurtful experience (visual,  aural, smells, facial expressions, colors, feelings etc.). Distress "recordings" are  then played back in future situations (after being re-stimulated) just like on a tape recorder, except that our body/mind is the tape recorder.   (see patterns).

Dramatization: the unaware repeating, either in words or action, of some or all of a hurtful memory without discharging it (this is often called "acting out"). Dramatizations may lead to discharge but are not the same as discharge, which can always be recognized by its physical characteristics. Also called Rehearsing Distress.

Electronic Mailing List-RC List: the means of communication by the Internet, used by the RC communities. (see detailed explanation at www.rc.org or in Present Time journal) There is a general RC-List and several lists dedicated to specific groups. Each email sent to a list is immediately sent to all people who have subscribed to it. Examples: men, women, "Mental Health", translators, ARP's. there are guidelines for the use of these lists.

ESM - Early Sexual Memories: a counseling technique which works with the earliest memories one has connected in any way to sex. ESM work is important for freeing oneself from patterns connected with sex as well as in many other parts of our lives, while avoiding much of the difficulty associated with counseling on current sexual matters.

Free Attention: the ability to focus one's attention in the present time on relevant tasks, as opposed to being restimulated and under the control of a distress recording.

Frozen Needs: real needs, which should have been fulfilled in our childhood by our caregivers, which we now unsuccessfully attempt to have filled by current relationships. These needs can never be satisfied in the present and thus remain "frozen" and wanting fulfillment, thus leading to difficulties or ending of relationships.  Frozen needs can be discharged by over-filling them or grieving the loss of not getting them in childhood.

Fundamentals: a series of classes, usually one night (or daytime) a week for several weeks, which are used to teach the basic knowledge and skills of how to be a Co-counselor.  A Fundamentals class must usually be completed before joining an RC community or taking part in RC workshops.

Guidelines:  the official working rules of the International Re-evaluation Counseling Communities, currently in the sixteenth version and the thirteenth version officially approved by the leadership of the Communities. The current edition was revised and approved by the World Conference held near Aptos, California, United States of America, November 28 - December 1, 1997. They are expected to be placed in the possession of all Co-Counselors in Fundamentals Re-evaluation Counseling classes. All work of the Local and International Communities is expected to be carried on in accordance with these Guidelines.  Adherence to these Guidelines is a prerequisite for participation in the Re-evaluation Counseling communities, and access to the benefits of such participation presumes adherence to these Guidelines. In particular, agreement with a commitment to keeping these Guidelines is obligatory for any person in any position of leadership in the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities. If variation or divergence from the Guidelines seems to become necessary in a particular practical situation, permission for such temporary divergence must be obtained from the International Reference Person. See the RC web site for more details at www.rc.org.  Also see One-point program.

Homophobia: the irrational fear of closeness with a person of the same gender. This fear is not part of the inherent nature of human beings, but installed on us by society. The rational approach is to view closeness between any two people as a  human, natural, basic, rational and positive need. Regarding men - this installed pattern  is the basis of attitudes that allow men to kill each other in wars; engage in suicidal activities in order to "prove" their manhood; to oppress and hurt women, other men and children, who are perceived as weaker then themselves.

Identification, Identity Check: checking to see if a person reminds one of someone else, and thus has pre-existing patterns about that person which will need to be cleared up.  It is a good idea to do an identity check with any new counselor so that reminders of another person do not interfere with your session.

Identity: a category to which a person believes they belong (identifies with), due to genetics, culture or history. Examples are: male, female, African-American, owning-class, middle-class, working class, raised poor, gay, lesbian, veteran, etc. Heterosexuality as a form of reproduction is inherent among humans.  Heterosexual identity refers to a rigid set of characteristics and behaviours, based on societally-imposed distress patterns, that function to maintain sexism, men's oppression, and Gay oppression, and to keep people separated from each other.

Inclusion: the approach / goal / policy in RC to include in the RC communities people of all types and varieties, and make it possible for all to fully participate in RC activities. This is in contrast with the usual approach in society to divide people, e.g. oppress, reject and sometimes put in institutions, people with differences. Examples of inclusion in RC activities: selecting workshop sites accessible to people in wheel chairs, translation in sign language in workshops, providing translations of literature and at all RC gatherings for people whose native language is different from the speaker's.

Inherent Nature: underlying nature of human beings characterized by our best expectations of humans. We are completely good, intelligent, powerful, connected to all human beings. We are naturally zestful, loving and cooperative. We are also vulnerable to the installation of distress patterns.

Intelligence: the ability to create a new, successful, creative response to fit each new, present situation.

Intensive: giving one-way, concentrated counseling to a single client by a group of counselors, for several hours or days. Intensives are given to a person who is in some transitional phase, great leap, or crisis. It is recommended that each community (area, region) gives their leader intensives regularly. Leaders from all over the world can have intensives with Personal Counselors, Inc. in Seattle, Washington, USA, in order to accelerate their development as leaders.

Intermittent Pattern: a pattern, which only operates at specific times. A person usually notices it because the behavior is not considered to be the normal or beneficial way of operating.

Internalized Oppression: the result of finally believing a distress pattern which was installed by external oppression and then acting out this distress on oneself or on members of one's own group. See Identity.

Invalidate, Invalidation: downgrade, belittle, make negative comments or judgments about a person. See Validation.

Isolation:  a distress pattern in which the person does not feel connected to other human beings and thus feels more comfortable being or acting alone.  May be an internalized oppression from being forced to be alone for long periods as a child.

Leadership: the ability of one human intelligence  to organize around itself additional human intelligences to cooperate in order to achieve a certain goal or series of goals. Leadership is an inherent natural ability of human intelligence. Every person is born with natural leadership.  It is not limited to only a few people.

Liberation: working to end oppression by discharging internalized patterns of oppression and by changing oppressive institutions and behavior.  Examples: Men's liberation, Women's liberation, Jewish liberation, etc.

Liberation [Draft] Policy: a document which analyzes the reasons, aspects and the character of the oppression operated on a specific group, and proposes goals and strategies for that group's liberation. Examples of draft liberation policies: "the Human Male, a Men's Liberation draft Policy", "What's Wrong with the 'Mental Health' System and What can be done about it".

Material: information presented during a session about a person's life, distress patterns, stories, etc. that are to be treated as confidential by the counselor.

Men's Oppression: oppression of the human male, starting right after birth. Expressed in a series of hurts, such as prevention of discharge, the idea that it is honorable for men to kill and get killed, to be violent, competitive, and suppress feelings. In contrast to all other oppressions, for men there is no other group who carries on the oppression; the entire society is the oppressor. Almost every person in the society has some role in men's oppression, and has rigid opinions and "beliefs" that are oppressive to men

"Mental Health" Oppression: the oppression performed by the "Mental health" system and all its branches. The main victims are people who were "treated" (or still are) in the system and their family members. The direct oppression is expressed in harmful "treatment" methods, loss of freedom, isolation, drugging, humiliation, labeling, discrimination in employment and much more. This oppression is also operated on ALL people, via schools and other institutions, and used as a whip to force all of us "to be normal," to conform. Among other things MHO also seriously damages the natural healing mechanism, the discharge process.  This is not intended to demean mental health workers, most of whom are caring, loving people who are doing the best they can in difficult, resource-limited institutions.

"Mental Health" System: all the psychiatric and psychological institutions, including their branches in social work, religion, education and parts of the health system, police and justice systems that support them and their concepts regarding "normality" and "abnormality", and regarding the medical model of "mental illness" and the methods to "treat" it.

"Mental Health" System Survivors: "survivors" in general, are people who have survived heavy oppression and are struggling with the results and the internalized oppression installed on them. MH system survivors are men and women who are or were "treated" by the system and survived (some people actually die in the system), and their relatives.

Mini or Mini-session: short session, usually from 2 to 20 minutes for each person, for the purpose of clearing away current restimulations before beginning some task.  Always used at the beginning of most RC classes and meetings, as learning is difficult or impossible when restimulated.

Natural Recovery Process: discharge and re-evaluation.

Nature of Human Beings: see Inherent Nature.

News and Goods: positive things that we notice about ourselves, our lives, or the world around us in order to become more present.

Numbness: the state of not being able to feel strong  feelings. Usually is a result of early hurts, where the person was prevented from expressing his/her feelings and discharge them, and numbness (or shtu-down) was used as a means to struggle and survive at that time.

Occluded Memory: a memory that is hard to get at (is not remembered, perhaps for many years) as a result of the hurtful experience it is connected to. Recovering  such a memory can allow the discharge of the related distresses.

On-going class: An RC class that continues on after a fundamentals class has been completed.  It may meet for a fixed length of time or continue meeting as long as members are willing to attend.  Usually covers advanced co-counseling skills and/or works on liberation issues in detail.

One-on-one: teaching another person the fundamentals of co-counseling by individual instruction rather than in a fundamentals class.

One-Point Program of the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities: That the only program of the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities which is binding on all members be: Through Re-evaluation Counseling to seek recovery of one's occluded intelligence and to assist others to do the same.  That all other activities undertaken by the Community be in support of this program and that no agreement beyond consistency with this program be required of members of the Community.  (excerpted from the Guidelines)

One-way counseling: a time when the counselor and client do not exchange roles.  Also called one-way time.  This is used when demonstrating counseling techniques in a class or workshop, or for special occasions when changing roles may not be possible, as when someone is very ill or has just been injured.  In addition, all young people are given one-way time until they are old enough to choose to be in the role of counselor.

Oppression: the systematic mistreatment of a group of people -- not for what they've done but for whom they are -- enforced by society and its institutions.

Oppression of Gay People: oppression on the basis of sexual preferences. The systematic mistreatment of people who identify as homosexuals, lesbians or bisexuals. Expressed, for example, by treating the sexual preference as a sin or illness, humiliating people, discrimination, physical abuse.

Oppression of Old People: (called also agism) oppression of people who have reached a certain age, pushing them out of work and leadership, viewing them as lacking flexibility, ugly, stupid etc.

Oppressor Role: the role of agreeing to carry out oppression. The person in the oppressor role has always been oppressed first -- accepting the role is the least awful method of coping with the oppression.

Panel: a method of presenting information about the oppression of a specific group, by inviting several members of that group to sit in front of the community (e.g. in a workshop), and tell about the oppression while getting attention and respect from the community. The leader can offer some questions to the group and can also serve as a counselor to them, encouraging them to express what their lives were like under the oppression. It is also possible to let the people in the community to say briefly what they have learned from the panel, guiding them not to "take time" or "argue" with what has been said. Everything said in the panel should be treated as session material. Examples: panels of men, women, people of color.

Pattern: a package of rigid behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that is compulsively acted out when the person is reminded of (restimulated by) something connected with an old distress - just as a tape recorder will always play the same thing when a particular piece of tape is played when the "play" button is pushed,  the person "plays" (acts out) the recording of accumulated distress. Also see Chronic, Control, Intermittent.

Permissive Counseling: a mode of counseling where the counselor tries to create a safe counseling environment for the client, but limits him/herself  to give benign, loving and interested attention to the client. In such mode, the most important part is played by the tone of voice and the facial expressions of the counselor. The main initiative in permissive counseling is taken by the client. This mode may be effective when struggling with intermittent patterns. The other mode is Directive counseling.

Power / Powerlessness: Power is the inherent natural ability of all human beings to act in order to change the world, to live a satisfying life and to create a supporting, interesting and harmonious world for all people. Powerlessness, the opposite of power, is never inherent but always an acquired distress pattern.

Present: the quality of living and experiencing the benign reality as it is right now, as contrasted with re-experiencing or living in the past or worrying about and living in the future. Planning for future, rational goals is a present time activity. "Being present" is necessary for the counselor and to some degree for the client. This is one of the purposes of News and Goods, Minis and other activities. Every session should start and end in present time.

Present Time: now, as contrasted with the past (already completed and unchangeable) or the future (yet to come and full of opportunities). Also the name of the quarterly journal of Re-evaluation Counseling Communities published by Rational Island.

Pseudo Reality: reality as perceived as a result of all our accumulated distress. Often described as being born in a clear bubble, then having blobs of paint and grime (distress) deposited on the bubble, thus limiting or distorting our perceptions. The sum of all the distress in our culture and world are the root cause of all our major difficulties in relating to one another.  Also see Benign Reality.

Rational: intelligent. Using one's natural ability as a human to think clearly and choose creative new responses that fit new situations exactly. Although distress recordings may block one's intelligence, the mind functions in an inherently rational manner except when there has been physical damage to the brain.

Rational Island: name of the publisher of all RC books and materials.

Rational Need: physical, emotional and mental needs which are essential for our existence and survival. Examples: the need to love and be loved, to sleep, to rest, to breathe, to eat, to play, to exercise, to get close to people. It is possible to think, plan and fully supply all the rational needs. When there is no distress, fulfillment of  these needs is controlled by our intelligence. The rational needs and the "amount" we need from each, may vary during our life. If in our childhood, certain rational needs were not met, and we were not allowed to discharge on those hurts, they may get out of our rational control and become frozen needs.

RC Class: a series of meetings, led by a teacher, in which people study the theory and practice of RC, improve counseling abilities and get personal support for their reemergence.  Also see Fundamentals and On-going.

RC Site: the Internet site of the RC communities  http://www.rc.org . The main on-line reference for RC theory and
practice and even an on-line fundamentals class.

Reality: see Benign Reality.

Reality Agreement: agreement between client and counselor to operate outside distress, understanding that we are completely good, that the actual reality of the universe is completely different than the pseudo-reality which is offered to us as a substitute for reality. 

Re-emergence: process of discharging old hurts and re-evaluating to reclaim our inherent nature in all its qualities. Recovers the intelligence that was tied up in undischarged distress. Allows us to live in benign reality instead of pseudo reality.

Reference Person: the person who is responsible for thinking and making decisions about a community, or grouping of communities or liberation area. Thus the Area Reference Person or ARP, the Regional Reference Person or RRP, the International Reference Person or IRP, and the International Liberation Reference Person or ILRP (for Men, Women, Jews, etc.). These are all listed in a section of the Present Time journal.

Region: an organizational structure of RC communities which contains a number of areas. Each region has a Regional Reference Person (RRP). The requirement for a region and its structure are defined in the guidelines.

Restimulation: a trigger, which activates a pattern -- can be any sensation or word that connects to (reminds one of) the original hurt (distress) underlying the pattern. This usually happens unawarely, but nevertheless is our mind's intentional bringing up of past distress with the hope of securing attention from another person or persons and achieving some discharge in order to heal.

Re-evaluation: evaluating the information that couldn't be thought through, either when you received it during a hurtful experience, or during restimulation, because your mind was shut down by distress. The term "evaluation" is a synonym for thinking flexibly and intelligently, comparing and contrasting new information with previous information and understanding it in relation to what we already know.  This is the way humans think.  The term "re-evaluation" indicates that an experience couldn't be evaluated because the evaluator was turned off, but that with discharge, the person's intelligence is freed to think it through, to understand it, or to "re-evaluate."  Once a hurtful experience has been thoroughly discharged ("cleaned up"), restimulation around that event will no longer occur.

Re-evaluation Counseling (RC): the process of discharging and re-evaluating in a deliberate and systematic manner (usually in the mode of Co-Counseling).

Rehearsing Distress: see Dramatization

Relationship Session: a type of counseling meeting (activity) in which a counselor (in this case taking the role of a relationship counselor) assists two (or more) people that have a difficulty in their relationship (often due to miscommunication), to start to communicate rationally, discharge distress behind their difficulties and improve the relationship. The usual process is: the first client talks about what s/he appreciates in the other one; what kind of relationships s/he would like to have with the other; what stands in her/his way to realize these relationships. The counselor then works with the first client on the distresses that come up. The same is done with the other client. The idea is that the involved people will continue after this session to do sessions between them or with others, in order to take full responsibility and solve the problems, and not to develop a dependent relationship with the counselor.

Role Exchange: a counseling technique in which the counselor plays the role or the identity of the client (usually as a victim) while the client gets to play the role of someone who had a significant effect on their lives.  Usually done to put the client in the more powerful role, often that of an oppressor or perpetrator.  For example, the counselor directs the client (who is an African American) to say to the counselor: "I am NOT black. You are black! And I will do to you what they do to black people!"  Then the client tells in details all the hurts s/he suffered as a member of that oppressed group.  Other examples are counselor as child, client as parent, counselor as employee, client as boss, etc.

Session: one period of time when two or more people are co-counseling. Usually set for a fixed period of time, which is the same for each person and carefully respected.  The time is usually for an hour or more each.  Also see mini-session.

Shut Down, Sunk: having one's attention on a painful or confusing memory without discharge and without awareness. Avoid by maintaining or restoring a balance of attention.

Self-Appreciation: see Appreciation.

Self Estimation:  Self-estimation is a tool to be used by a working group such as a community and its leadership.
Suggested format:
1.a.   Each member has a turn in which s/he speaks to his/her strong points, clear areas of excellence in the work role;
1.b.   Speaks to areas which s/he would like to improve;
2.a.   Other group members in turn speak to the strong points of the person in the work role;
2.b.   Make positive suggestions of directions in the areas they see the person needs to achieve further progress.
Clearly the effectiveness of self-estimation depends on how carefully and awarely we think about each other.   For example, Area Reference Person and Alternate Area Reference Person are encouraged to undertake self-estimation and be confirmed by the meeting in their job during at least one of the two yearly Area membership meetings.

Sexism: the oppression of women.

Support Group:  a group of co-counselors who share a common oppression and meet periodically to hear some theory about liberation of that group and where each person is counseled by the support group leader.

Techniques: see Counseling Techniques

Theory or RC Theory:  refers to the current body of knowledge in RC about human beings, how they are affected by hurts, how they can be healed, etc.  Always referred to as theory not fact, as it is continually undergoing change as we discharge and learn more.

Think and Listen: an activity where each person in a group gets a chance to think out loud about something with attention from others and without interruption. Each person speaks her/his own thoughts without referring to what anyone else has said (ever!). Each person has an opportunity to speak once before anyone speaks twice. Each person has the opportunity to speak twice before anyone speaks four times.

Thinking vs. Feelings: rational thinking, based on an accurate view of reality, without distresses and patterns, is the correct basis for action. Feelings are not a reliable basis for action. It is possible to enjoy good feelings (although they may also be based on distress, as while taking drugs), and it is desirable to discharge on bad feelings, but it is undesirable to use them as a basis for action or from refraining from action.

Topic Group: a small group of people who meets in a workshop in order to talk, discuss or plan for an action on a certain subject, and also to discharge. The discharge is not the main purpose of a topic group, as contrasted with a support group.

Understatement:  A counseling technique wherein a sentence is repeated by the client (usually a direction suggested by the counselor), phrased as an understatement, and far away in place and time from the client. The usual format of understatement is: "It sometimes happens that... (e.g. that someone likes someone)."  An understatement is used in order to enable the client to agree to look at a description of the benign reality, that s/he finds difficult to accept about him/herself because of his/her distresses. The counselor encourages the client to repeat the statement several times, in order to bring about discharge. A series of understatements should be experimented with in order to create a specific understatement for a specific client contradicts particular distresses. Another example, in different format: "there are recorded incidents in history where everything turned out to be just fine..."

Ups and Outs: things that bring one's attention away from distress, usually done to end a session. Examples: noticing colors in the room, trees and flowers outside, counting backwards from 20 by threes, naming 3 or 4 types of objects (dogs, cats, cars, etc.). Avoid any task which might restimulate client or return to discharge. Also called Attention Outs, Light and Lively, Present Time.

Upward trend: development and change in the world and in the human beings in a positive direction, the direction to more order, meaning, integration, growth, intelligence and awareness, and independence.

Validation: Commenting on the inherent reality about someone.

Wide World:  the world around us, society, the environment, etc., outside of the RC community. Wide World Changers are RCers who take initiative to actively change the world.

Workshop: a counseling activity in which a group of RCers dedicate time (between several hours to several days) for intensive counseling activities, usually on a particular topic. The workshop has a leader,  an assistant, an organizer, and several other roles. A workshop can have various activities like theory, demos, sessions, games, support groups, topic groups, panels etc.

Wygelian Support Group: a support group for building leadership with a specific format. The word "Wygelian" was taken from the name of a flower. In usage, the word Wygelian is replaced with the type of group - Teachers and Leaders Support Group, Men's Leaders Support group, etc.

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[Many thanks for the original HTML by Andrew Zolnai, modified by David A. Lillie]

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