Co-counselling (spelled co-counseling in American English) is a grassroots method of personal change based on reciprocal peer counselling. It uses simple methods. Time is shared equally and the essential requirement of the person taking their turn in the role of counsellor is to do their best to listen and give their full attention to the other person. It is not a discussion; the aim is to support the person in the client role to work through their own issues in a mainly self-directed way. Co-counselling was originally formulated in the early 1950s by the American Harvey Jackins and originated in a schism in the Dianetics movement (itself in part derived from schisms in general semantics and cybernetics). Jackins founded the Re-evaluation Counseling (RC) Communities, with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States. His son, Tim Jackins, is currently the international leader of Re-evaluation Counseling and its main affiliates. Like other offshoots of Dianetics such as Scientology and the Landmark Forum, Re-evaluation Counseling has features of a cult and an authoritarian leadership structure that actively suppresses dissent and critique. There are a number of smaller, separate, independent organizations that have resulted from breakaways from, or re-workings of, Re-evaluation Counseling. The principal one of these is Co-Counseling International (CCI). General description The main activity in co-counselling involves participants arranging to meet regularly in pairs to give each other peer-to-peer counselling, in turn taking the role of counsellor and client, with equal amounts of time allocated to each. Co-counselling functions by giving people an opportunity to work on whatever issues they choose with the accepting support of another person. The person in the role of counsellor acts as a facilitator to the client, sometimes as a third-party observer and sometimes as a second-party confidant. While co-counselling is sometimes practiced outside a formal organisation, formal co-counselling organisations have developed leadership and support structures, including trainings and retreats. Safety (in the sense of being very low risk) and the sense that a co-counselling session is a safe space is important to the methods. There are strict rules of confidentiality. In most circumstances, the counsellor may not talk about a client's session without explicit and specific permission by the client. This is stricter than in other practices where practitioners discuss clients with supervisors, colleagues and sometimes with all sorts of other people. The peer relationship makes a considerable contribution to a sense of trust. The nature of