Co-Counselling International

Co-Counselling International (CCI) is an international peer network of co-counsellors (spelled co-counseling and co-counselors in US English).

Co-Counselling International (CCI) was started in 1974 as breakaway from Re-evaluation Counseling by John Heron who was at the time director of the Human Potential Research Project, University of Surrey UK, and Tom and Dency Sargent from Hartford (Conn., USA). (Heron, John 1998) (First published by Human Potential Research Project, University of Surrey, Guildford in 1974) The CCI break was ideological and CCI developed in significantly different ways in practice, theory and organisation.

The first gatherings of CCI co-counsellors took place in 1974 in the USA and in Europe and annual international gatherings have taken place in both locations since then. The European gatherings currently rotate between Germany, Hungary, Ireland, The Netherlands and UK.

John Heron's status within the network has always been as an equal member, although inevitably as a founder member, activist for some 15 years and the person who developed much of the thinking behind CCI there was a certain amount of transference on to him. He now lives in New Zealand and has an involvement with the CCI network there.

There is no imperative in CCI to evangelise and so the network has spread somewhat slowly and haphazardly. In the USA the network existed for many years mainly in and around Connecticut but it is now spreading to other parts of the country. Outside of Europe and the USA the main development has been in New Zealand where there is now an active network and they hold their own series of international gatherings.

In CCI the person in the client role is wholly in charge of the session. The counsellor only intervenes in accordance with one of three levels of “contract” - free attention, normal and intensive – which are defined in CCI's principles. The only requirement of the counsellor is that they give “free attention” - that is full supportive attention – to the client. The other two contracts constitute invitations to the counsellor to make interventions from within those permitted if they feel it is appropriate. (Heron, John 1996) Clients in CCI may and do draw on a wide range of therapeutic activities that can be used self-directedly as well as the cathartic discharge - re-evaluation activities.

CCI is a peer network with no core structure, classes and activities are organized by individuals or groups acting self-directedly. The network consists of individuals and groups who agree to a set of ideas about what CCI is. Although it has no formal status, the principles outlined in A Definition of CCI (Heron, John 1996) have stood the test of time as a necessary and sufficient statement of those ideas.

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