science

Re-evaluation counseling

Re-evaluation counseling is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Re-evaluation counseling rather than just read about it. In short: Re-evaluation counseling (RC) is a business, and a network of peer counseling. Its core philosophy prescribes regularly relating painful memories to a peer counsel or group and releasing strong feelings by crying, shaking, or laughing as the best salve for psychological wounds.

Key takeaways

Re-evaluation counseling belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Re-evaluation counseling to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Re-evaluation counseling from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Re-evaluation counseling (RC) is a business, and a network of peer counseling. Its core philosophy prescribes regularly relating painful memories to a peer counsel or group and releasing strong feelings by crying, shaking, or laughing as the best salve for psychological wounds. This idea was first developed in the 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard and called Dianetics (later Scientology). Re-evaluation counseling recruits members by branding itself as a peer-based counseling procedure trying to help people and bring about social reform. In the early 1970s Personal Counselors, Inc, established the Re-evaluation Counseling Community, made up of local groups of people called "Co-Counselors" in Seattle and beyond, based until 2021 in Seattle, Washington, and currently in Shoreline, Washington. It was led by Harvey Jackins until his death in 1999. It is currently led by his son Tim Jackins.

History In the early 1950s Harvey Jackins associated with L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology) and others interested in Dianetics (what later became Scientology). This led Jackins to establish Personal Counselors Inc. which aimed to "engage in, conduct and teach the art and science of Dianetics." RC reports that collaboration between Jackins and Hubbard became unworkable, and Jackins ended their association and continued to develop RC as a separate organization. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jackins continued to build Personal Counselors, Inc., and in the 1960s and 1970s took RC from Seattle, where he first practiced it, to the rest of the US and then to other countries. Between 1975 and 1990, he appointed local teachers, area representatives, regional leaders and representatives of groups. A set of Guidelines for the community was adopted a biennial conference of local leaders. The Guidelines are revised at similar conferences, known as "World Conferences", originally biennial but currently every four years. The conferences also adopt general goals for the community. After Jackins' death in 1999, his son, Tim Jackins, was chosen at a conference, attended by leaders in the RC communities worldwide, to take over the role of International Reference Person, the title given to the leader of RC.

Investigation by the Boston Globe Co-counseling was recently the focus of a 2021 investigation by The Boston Globe, after a youth worker in the school system was found to be practicing co-counseling (which is not a licensed therapy program) with minors without the permission of the student's parents. Quoting from the Boston Globe: "Boston high school sophomore, Keondre McClay said he was pressured by the head of a district-sponsored youth advocacy program to attend an overnight retreat in Newton, where white adults asked the Black teenager to wrestle out his emotions on a gym mat with them. They said it would help him purge his trauma from experiencing racism. McClay fled to his room. Jenny Sazama, the program leader, and other retreat participants chased after him. For more than an hour, he recalled recently, they hugged him on his bed and entreated him to return to the group 'counseling' session while he hid under the covers screaming, “Please leave me alone!”.

Organization

The organization's official title is "The International Re-evaluation Counseling Communities". It is resourced by Re-evaluation Counseling Community Resources, Inc., with headquarters in Shoreline, Washington, USA. Its president is Tim Jackins and its vice president is Sarah Elizabeth Jackins. The corporation owns trademark in the terms "Re-evaluation Counseling", "RC" and "United to End Racism". It also controls the Re-evaluation Foundation, a non-profit 501(c) organization, and Rational Island Publishers. Within RC, Tim Jackins is called the "International Reference Person". He is a former community college mathematics teacher from Palo Alto, California, and a graduate of Yale and Stanford. He has been a co-counselor, leader and teacher of RC for most of his life. The International Reference Person appoints senior leaders ("reference persons") in consultation with local groups. Local groups choose local leaders. Reference persons are consulted about who can attend events, teach RC, and lead groups. According to RC itself, no reference person is paid. Re-evaluation Counseling encourages its members to play an active role in public life and has set up groups to promote its ideas, which it calls "naturalized" groups. The main groups promoting RC methods are United to End Racism" (UER), formed in 2000, and Sustaining All Life, formed in 2015. UER is part of RC and shares its HQ in Shoreline. The Re-evaluation Foundation aims "To provide opportunities for people to participate in Re-evaluation counseling who otherwise could not afford to participate." It was founded in 1972. Its president is Michael Markovits, a former vice-president of IBM. Its assets at the end of 2006 were approximately $1M. In 2007, the foundation made grants to several organizations initiated by Re-evaluation Counseling.

United to End Racism

United to End Racism (UER) is a program made out of members of Re-evaluation Counseling (RC), which publicly states that its aim is to eliminate racism "on an individual basis" using Re-evaluation counseling, a practice invented by Harvey Jackins. UER was founded by RC on 28 November 2000. United to End Racism is one of a number of non-profit organizations that represent RC in public forums. Harvey Jackins, founder of the RC movement, encouraged members of RC to create such organizations to spread RC ideas and objectives along lines decided by the RC leadership; previous well known examples of this tactic include Nuclear Freeze campaigns in the 1980s and the US-based National Coalition Building Institute, founded by RC'er Cherie Brown. Jackins' son, Tim Jackins, the current world leader of RC, is also the de facto leader of UER. The organisation appears solely to exist to service activist conferences as an invited body, and only sporadically carries out other activities. It has no separate membership from RC and is managed from Personal Counselors, Inc (recently renamed "Re-evaluation Counseling Community Resources, Inc"), the office of RC in Seattle. Officers of UER are members of Re-evaluation Counseling and UER policies are determined by the RC leadership.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Re-evaluation counseling

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Re-evaluation counseling claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Re-evaluation counseling before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Re-evaluation counseling ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Re-evaluation counseling

In research: Re-evaluation counseling appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Re-evaluation counseling in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Re-evaluation counseling is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Anti-psychiatry, Counseling, Human Potential Movement, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Re-evaluation counseling outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Re-evaluation counseling in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Re-evaluation counseling means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Re-evaluation counseling out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Re-evaluation counseling in simple terms?

Why does Re-evaluation counseling matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Re-evaluation counseling?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Re-evaluation counseling.