Faced with a collection of techniques and ground rules of the kind written about in this manual, or talked about in co-counselling classes, beginners sometimes worry about 'feeling awkward' or 'lacking spontaneity.' In our view there are two separate issues here, both worthy of comment.
Consider first the situation where you are setting out to learn 'how to do it.' As you learn to trust and use the co-counselling relationship and methods you will probably move from saying, "This seems artificial," to "When I'm co-counselling it now all goes by itself." This is the same as most people experience when learning to drive a car or to dance; early stages feel awkward; self consciousness is part of learning, though we don't usually call it artificial in these cases. When you are skilled and can do it, it will seem spontaneous. You don't have to be aware, you just respond appropriately. We see spontaneity as a useful word to describe the feeling accompanying the activity of creative intelligence; of responding flexibly and appropriately to new situations; of responding smoothly without interference from distressed baggage from the past. This is often described as "flow"--a marvelous experience.
We do note however that the word is often used differently. "I'm going to act spontaneously," often means I'm escaping from Distress. "I don't want to do what I was going to do because it will be too distressing." In these cases people 'spontaneously' want to do something different; go out into the country, and so on. And, just like everything else, co-counselling techniques can be applied inappropriately, without flexibility--can be put to patterned uses. However what most people experience in co-counselling is learning to distinguish between distressed spontaneity and skilled spontaneity--the experience of creative 'flow'.
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