Article published in The Door Opener:

Sarah’s panic attacks were making her world smaller and smaller.  She found herself avoiding shopping, meetings, church and all social gatherings, until she could no longer go anywhere without fear.  Her friends noticed her growing isolation.  When she came to therapy, the intensity and amount of attacks were escalating: her emotions were out of control, and she only wanted them to go away.  Relief came when she began to understand, accept, and take charge of the feeling she had been trying to avoid.

Emotions can make life worth living.   The joys of holding a newborn baby, seeing a rainbow, winning the race are all life-giving.  The contrasting feelings of grief, loss, anger, frustration and fear give us the ability to process all of the events we encounter in life, as well as, relate and feel connected to one another.   Yet these feelings are still there even after we have faced our demons and processed most of the biggest waves of emotional pain from debilitating traumas. When we allow ourselves to accept these more difficult emotions, they can give us clues about how to live richer, more rewarding lives.

I remember once believing, “When I am finished with therapy, I will be “okay,” that is, only have good feelings: happy, excited, peaceful, contented.  No more fear, anxiety, anger or shame/guilt.”   Not true.  I faced the bad news: that all those emotions are still here and mine forever, as long I am alive.

At that point, I set out to find ways to understand and control those powerful emotions, to gain a sense of being in charge of my feelings and my life. I studied theories, attended self-help groups, seminars, workshops and practiced techniques from many disciplines.

I now know that emotions are wonderful messages from my body to let me know what I want or don’t want, what I should do or not do, and best of all, give me the energy and motivation to take an action on my behalf.

Co–counseling has been one of my favorite classes. It is a simple, effective peer process for personal growth and on-going wellness, offering information and practical techniques for exploring emotional patterns, and taking charge rather than being driven by them.

As a therapist in private practice, I have observed that with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, certain clients move faster when using co-counseling as an adjunct to one-on-one therapy.  Developing a strong sense of self and building boundaries provide a way to stay calm, so that there is less likelihood of taking things personally. Self-abuse, blame and shame are minimized. An inner locus of control is established.  People relinquish ineffective, self-defeating, chronic defense patterns more easily and achieve their therapy goals more quickly.

When clients use co-counseling skills along with therapy, they make an easier transition when they are ready to take on the world solo.  The classes, skills days, and workshops provide on-going communities of co-counselors who are skilled in supporting the healing that is instrumental in recovery. Co-counseling skills are used immediately to manage day-to-day stresses. Once the skills are learned, the co-counselor can participate in an international network of like-minded people involved in this process, with a purpose of becoming more alive and fulfilling our potential as human beings.

“We need to create safe places where people can express their pain, sadness, and anger, while simply staying with them with attention and love.” Elizabeth Kubler Ross.

Co-counseling skills offer a structure to establish a safe environment with a culture of validation, support, and encouragement. And yet, co-counseling is not for everyone. People with significant counter-indicating diagnoses, or in early stages of drug and alcohol abuse recovery or who are not able to focus on another person to listen attentively are advised to find other means of support for their recovery until they are ready for the level of attention and self-responsibility that co-counseling involves.  Co-counseling does work well with other therapies and with people who are experienced in working 12-step programs.

Co Counseling

1. At our core we are all good
2. We each have our own answers
3. We can heal the hurts and dysfunction that masks that good
4. We can make intentional changes in our behavior and in our lives
5. Aware caring attention from a listener helps us to do this

1.  Identify and break limiting, self-defeating patterns
2. Take control of our emotions so they don’t take control of us
3. Find our emotional intelligence, and use it to take charge of our lives
   

1.   Establish the experience of being in charge of life
2. Provide simple easy stress management tools
3. Offer training in recognizing and managing feelings
4. Teach specific techniques to express those feelings in a safe, healthy way
5. Give awareness and tools for intimacy and open, direct communication

A Sample of Skills and Techniques

1. New and Goods: Share the memory of something recent that felt good.  A round of new and goods lifts everyone’s mood
2. Validation: Build awareness of our strengths so that they are more available to us
3. Release: Identify emotion, and permit the appropriate release of the energy built up by that feeling. Following this release is a state of relief, clarity, and spontaneous reevaluation of the event, often leading to Life Action
4. Life Action: Setting specific achievable steps, often with a “by when” time and with the aid of a life action partner for support
5. Present Time: Feelings often intensify when we focus on them, so we give the brain an activity to focus on until the feelings subside, for example, count the windows here, or name 5 fruits.  This is also helpful in an emergency when everyone else is stressed and can’t think
6. Identification Check: Make the distinction between an association that is current and appropriate to the here and now, and one that triggers a memory of a person or situation in the past.  Really helpful when there is unreasonable fear or anxiety.
7. Random Pleasant Memories: Remember briefly pleasant and successful times, moving quickly from one to the next.  Good for changing a heavy feeling state to a lighter one.   The feelings follow the thoughts.
8. Pattern Identification/Pattern breaking: Identify current repeated behavior that we no longer want in our lives. These recurring behaviors, typically invented to defend us in childhood, are not helpful today and are often self-defeating.  Specific techniques allow us to interrupt and to substitute new healthy patterns of defense and behavior.   </>

 “Co-counseling offers a range of shared practices based on individual responsibility and self-direction, used to manage emotions, grow in self-understanding and develop our human potential.  We create a peer based culture of validation and respectfulness to support, discover and express our actual being as well as our spirituality.”       

I have been using co-counseling techniques for 35 years and they have been some of the most effective skills I have found. Life action buddies, a community that is worldwide, and pattern-breaking techniques has contributed to creating a strong ego, maturity, and self-acceptance for thousands of people who have benefited from practicing these skills.  As an adjunct to therapy or as a stand-alone process, co-counseling is a powerful tool for personal growth, on-going wellness, and a sense of   freedom and joy.

Barbara Woodis-Ihloff    October 7, 2004

Barbara Woodis-Ihloff:  Private practice for 25 years.  Wellswood Wholistic Health Center now in Colchester CT.  She is a Therapist, Rebirther, Kripalu Yoga Teacher, Reiki Practitioner, Co-Counseling Teacher, Consultant and Trainer.  She has had a long and happy career as a wife and mom, a laboratory technician, youth service officer at Long Lane, Director of Education at the Northeast Alcohol Council and now is retiring from private practice in January.