Deep within your subconscious lurks a fiery cauldron of emotional hurt which radiates an internal stream of reactionary thoughts and impulses. Unless you purge these intrapsychic demons you will never reclaim your "basic loving, cooperative, intelligent, and zestful nature." This, in a nutshell, is the central message of a unique therapeutic collective known as Re-evaluation Counseling (RC), which constitutes an unseen force within the broad framework of left-wing political dissent.

The notion that activists need to undergo a thorough psychological cleansing to remove the effects of past trauma and/or societal conditioning dates back to the 1970s when the nascent Human Potential movement compelled introspective revolutionaries to flock to various self-anointed gurus and encounter groups in the hopes of achieving greater sincerity and empathy in their organizing efforts.

However, the programmatic goals of RC or "co-counseling" sharply diverge from its historical predecessors. The Seattle-based group considers its blend of psychology and ideology to be a dynamic revolutionary sub-current with the potential to transform the planet into a peaceful, non-racist, classless society.

The peer counseling concept is far from complex. According to the organization's Web site, the process involves two consenting individuals who "take turns counseling and being counseled. The one acting as the counselor listens, draws the other out and permits, encourages, and assists emotional discharge."

As our life experiences color our perceptions in regards to race, gender, and other social issues, it is vital that we "discharge" these negative experiences in order to rid ourselves of oppression (or the urge to oppress) and reclaim our "rational" selves. According to former member Matthew Lyons, this involves the use of "cathartic processes such as shaking, crying, laughing, and yawning." [1]

Estimates vary, but at a bare minimum, some 10,000 followers across the globe are actively affiliated with the International Re-Evaluation Counseling Communities (IRCC) and their numbers are steadily rising. This accelerated growth and a shared belief that RC is a "possible source of correct thinking and policy for all human beings" has led the organization to cast aside its onetime resistance to publicity in order to openly promote its secular doctrine. This includes a high-profile Web site and over two dozen publications and books devoted to the politically-oriented peer-counseling program. A cursory Internet search will unearth a number of RC-influenced college courses, seminars, and workshops, along with various learned individuals who praise the untapped potential of RC teachings.

Yet their focal point remains in the realm of radical politics where RC organizers are flocking in droves. Targeting college towns and notoriously bohemian districts throughout the country, co-counseling communities are popping up in New York, Kansas City, Austin, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Santa Barbara, and other locales. "They have a long history going back to the 1960s of infiltrating political movements," says Margaret Deirdre O'Hartigan, a Portland researcher and writer who has chronicled the influence of Re-Evaluation Counseling in the Pacific Northwest. This venerable tradition of allowing incognito organizers to proselytize among those dedicated to unrelated political causes is referred to in the group's argot as "naturalizing" or "Wygelian" work.

Yet peer counseling proponents are rarely content with being mere foot soldiers for a selected ideological cause. According to O'Hartigan, they frequently "work to establish a monopoly to exclude people from power who are not members of RC."

In Oregon, where co-counseling is rapidly gaining ground, O'Hartigan asserts that its advocates hold leadership positions in the state's Democracy Project, Tools for Diversity, an anti-racist political faction, and a surfeit of like minded groups. Indeed, RC is gradually entering the mainstream political process. For example, Beverly Stein, a Portland politician and avowed RC supporter currently presides over the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, which coordinates county public services and controls an estimated budget of over $900 million.

"I've found it to be a powerful tool for listening to people," she informed reporter Bill Redden when asked about her affiliation with the shadowy group (PDXS, June 7-20, 1993). Yet this is merely the tip of the iceberg. The organization's influence extends all the way to Washington DC.

"I was one of two hundred people from around the U.S. invited to the White House this morning for a breakfast meeting and workshop with U.S. President Bill Clinton on the issue of hate crimes," recounts veteran RC organizer Cherie Brown. [2]

As head of the highly acclaimed National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI), Brown is credited with providing "the most successful 'university in diversity' training workshops in government agencies, organizations, and businesses," according to journalist Leo Lazo (Outpost, November 12, 1997). These seminars and classes given to federal bureaucrats and corporate executives, Lazo asserts, are based on concepts forged within the co-counseling community. Although centered in Washington DC, the RC front group is national in scope, claiming some "50 city-based leadership teams" and over three dozen campus chapters.

The prominence of the IRCC in the human rights movement can also be evidenced by its notable presence at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women. While Hillary Clinton waxed eloquent on topics ranging from female genital mutilation to global poverty at the UN-sponsored summit, some 300 RCers as they like to be called, held over two dozen workshops on "women's health, internalized oppression, women in leadership, mothering, disabilities, and ending racism."

The growth of the NCBI and other affiliated groups dedicated to easing racial tensions has even given rise to a new operative paradigm in the public policy milieu known as the "Prejudice Reduction" (PR) model.

"As a diversity training model, PR applies the RC framework of exploring and healing past hurts, focusing on the hurts of being a target or a colluder [sic] with prejudice and bigotry," explains Patti DeRosa in Bright Ideas (Winter, 1996). Yet De Rosa questions the establishmentarian nature of the RC experience. "The emphasis is on the prejudice, not necessarily institutional oppression. By focusing on personal hurt, it may obscure the very real differences in power," she asserts.

However, RC have little time for this type of constructive criticism, as the organization considers its presence a solitary bulwark against a murderous society which is covertly targeting various demographic groups for imminent "destruction."

The group offer dire warnings of an impending secular apocalypse should humanity fail to heed its clarion cry of personal liberation. University of Ulster academic Dr. Dennis Tourish articulates the dark prophecy promulgated by RC leaders: