The Importance of Recognizing that the Client is Engaged in Processing, and simply Experiencing and Appreciating What is Happening
This article is not my first discussion of these principles; I was recently inspired by what a client expressed about what had happened in a session he had with another practitioner. Accordingly, I’ll now endeavor to more broadly and emphatically convey how I feel we practitioners are obliged to act in the best interests of our clients, and how not to act in ways that are detrimental to those interests.
Part One: The Essential Principle
Recognize when the client is engaged in processing, and then do nothing other than experience and appreciate this processing, as it is occurring. To do otherwise is at best a hindrance; at worst, it is the fuel for an explosive disruption.
John McMaster, in one of his lectures on Power Processing, said it well in remarking that, once the PC has received the command, “put nothing, not even thoughts, into the space”.
I have four years of putting John McMaster’s lessons to practice in daily sessions. My experience has very, very well confirmed and demonstrated the great advantages of this approach; of doing nothing at all beyond simply being “there” with the client while processing is occurring in and with the mind of the client. Let me take this a step further and more accurately: As a practitioner, I’m being “here” (“here” being “where” the client is) in conducting the session; the client and I are “here”- in recognition and full acceptance of “occupying the same space”, having no distance or separation; I am experiencing what the client is experiencing, along with him.
It would seem obvious that we would not want to distract or interrupt a client engaged in the act of processing, but for some of us, it may not be as apparent that our thoughts can have an impact on others.
We are all connected all of the time. It is only a matter of how conscious and intentional we are about our connectivity, and when we are in direct communication, far more can be sensed beyond what is said out loud.
Let me help you across the bridge to this understanding by recounting my own personal experience:
In 1981 I was in session with a PC, running “New Era Dianetics”, being pretty green back then, I became somewhat impatient and concerned with what seemed to be an extended silence without much showing on the meter. I tried silently intending the process command I had given the PC, repeating it nonverbally three times. Each time I observed the exact same instant needle movement as when I originally stated the command verbally!
That demonstrated the fact of “spiritual communication”, “telepathy” or whatever you care to call it. And so I observed the impact that unspoken thoughts can have in disrupting the auditing process for myself.
Don’t let yourself get caught up here in being fascinated or overly impressed with my telepathic accomplishment in the session. Acknowledge to yourself that such things can and do happen, and fully absorb these importances:
(1) Your thoughts are experienced, on some level of consciousness, by those they involve, and/or those in proximity to you.
(2) In interjecting his (or her) thoughts into the ongoing processing, the auditor yanks the PC’s attention, to greater or lesser degree, away from their processing cycle.
Part Two: What it Takes
This requires the willingness, intention, and the practitioner’s recognition of his ability to completely experience the client.
This being “here” with the client can only be accomplished if you, as practitioner, can and will maintain freedom from any impulse to resist anything the client manifests and/or expresses, and however they might express it. It takes the conscious decision on your part to absorb and permeate all that occurs, without entering even the slightest degree of effort into the process. The practitioner extends himself to be the client, along with the client. The client needs to be enabled and empowered to experience whatever manifests for him, secure that it is completely acceptable and thereby accepted, and then thereby fully processed, and thus all negative energies of any form or magnitude are dissolved into their natural elemental form of free, positive life energy.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Of course it does! It really IS great, as you have, hopefully, experienced in session. The failure to bring about and maintain a state of oneness with the client during processing can ruin something that should be magnificent. The practitioner must always aspire not to let that happen.
When processing is occurring, shut off your “thought generator”. If it activates, let it go silent, and get back in the game with your client.
The quality that best serves the PC when processing is occurring is to simply be there, totally willing and able to experience whatever the client may manifest or express, and never react. It is more common than most would think for an auditor to resist something the client expresses, to become concerned with how it seems to challenge the auditor’s “position”. Ideally, the only viewpoint the auditor should experience when processing is taking place is that of the client; in effect, rather than exuding any “presence” himself, the auditor should be fully engaged in experiencing the client’s presence.
Please take this moment to fully take this in; Here I am not talking about sitting across from the client, observing him or her from across a short distance few feet away and noticing what you can. I am talking about willfully, consciously occupying the same “here” that is the client’s “here”, permeating and experiencing along with him or her.
There is no mechanical “how” to this; one simply decides to merge into the state of permeating the client, seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels. When so engaged, the energies, as pressures, attitudes, etc, are tangible. It is not unusual to get images and the client’s words just ahead of these being expressed. This is not “confronting”; this is being. The degree of accomplishing this should increase with practice, but it is doable, and becomes perhaps the most essential element of the auditing process.
Part Three: What’s the Problem?
Now, as to what gets in the way of purely being “here” with the client:
In a perfect processing situation, neither the auditor nor the PC is generating any energy toward any negative case material. Negative case material is composed of conflicting forces, rooted in opposing ideas (dichotomies), and the very definition of “processing”, as it applies to negative case material, is the dissolution of forces; and so, the opposite of the successful processing of negative material would be the imposition of forces, be they of the frequencies of thought, emotion and/or effort, as these are actually all within the full spectrum of energy, aka force, aka effort. As I’ve written elsewhere, processing is analogous to digestion, the breaking down into elemental particles of what has been ingested; processing is “spiritual digestion”.
Thus, when the client is engaged in processing, the practitioner must not burden the process by imposing any additional thought, emotion or effort for the client to process. This can only impede the processing.
The problems that manifest in a practitioner’s interfering with the client’s processing fall into two categories:
Failure to understand/recognize that processing is occurring, and/or that the client is best served by silently being one with the client through the process
Revivification is the action of a PC being so immersed in some negative case material that he experiences its attitudes and sensations. What is often not understood is that this is a sign that the PC is very efficiently and deeply processing that case material. This is not something to “handle” or otherwise interfere with! All that is necessary for the practitioner to do while this is happening is to appreciate that some sizable volume of relevant case material is being successfully processed. Be here with the client, understand what is happening and enjoy the ride. Await the inevitable relief, joy and case gain which is the pot of gold at the end of this particular rainbow, or for the client to process this material, do nothing else until he has disengaged from that cycle of processing, and is looking straight at the practitioner as if to say “that’s all, over to you, I’m ready for the next instruction”.
When the client is excitedly or emotionally describing some undesirable condition or circumstance, in that moment he is actually processing that material. The practitioner may tend to take this as something he needs to “handle” with a processing solution, and start pulling out an L1C, or other “repair list”, and thus “misses the boat”. This is actually a time to simply be “here” with the client, because he is actually already engaged in processing this material. Far more often than one might think, remaining silent and being “here” with the client, thus encouraging them to simply continue, allows the manifesting negative material to be processed.
Another aspect of this issue: If you have the next “command” in mind while the client is engaged in processing, you aren’t “here” with the client. And if you are in “pick up the pace of the session” mode (as many have been mistrained to do), you tend to rush that next command in the moment that the client has completed a sentence. When this happens you aren’t facilitating the processing; you’re disrupting the process!
Never fall so in love with “the process”, and giving the processing commands, that you interfere with the processing.
Giving commands is not where the processing happens; getting the PC’s answer and acknowledging is not where the processing happens. The processing happens when the client is digesting his case material, and you are silently being “here” with them. So, never, ever rush the PC out of processing with any effort to “speed things up”; instead, allow the client to digest every possible particle of case material by confidently, encouragingly remaining silent until the client makes it clear that, in this moment, that’s all they’ve got and they’re awaiting the next instruction.
This, by the way, is a very valuable and important point to understand:
The client will continue to process more case material, and will be in the act of doing so, for as long as he (or she) is looking away from you, the practitioner. Even if the PC says “That’s all I’ve got”, or some such, don’t be misled. He is still in processing mode until he’s silently looking at you, in effect looking to you for the next question or instruction. (The only exception would be the occasional PC who rarely if ever looks the auditor in the eyes, due to some as yet unhandled case issue).
And so, the lesson here is (other than with the aforementioned rare case situation):
Never give the client the next question while he (or she) is still looking away from you; if you do, you are only disrupting the ongoing processing.
Some of the best sessions my clients experience happen when they begin expressing something that was disturbing for them, and I silently allow them to continue with what they are expressing (and thereby processing) for any amount of time, sometimes an hour or more, being quite emotional (revivifying). I simply be here with them right through the point where that case material has been completely processed, at which point great relief, a pronounced sense of well being, enthusiasm, and gratitude is expressed. On the meter, large volume of tone arm action and either a very large floating needle or a floating tone arm are observed- all this without being interrupted by a single auditing command.
Of course, if the client completes the communication and looks to me for further instruction without having yet gotten that end result, then at that point I would initiate or continue with a processing question or instruction.
The second category:
The practitioner’s having a problem experiencing something presented by the client, and responds by, in some form, resisting what the client is expressing.
This can be absolutely brutal to processing. It is one such occurrence of this that inspired (you could say drove) me to write this article.
The PC can express something, like, “You gave me a wrong indication”, “This auditing isn’t helping me”, “Your processing screwed me up” etc., and the practitioner shouldn’t react at all. Of course, the auditor should simply be “here” with the client and allow him to process his material, which, as needed, thereby encouraging him to continue to digest and express what is manifesting for them.
There have been occurrences of the practitioner having an internal reaction, and falling out of being “here” with the client. If they really lose it, regrettable things are said in what is actually an effort to resist the client’s expressing what they are experiencing.
Here are some actual examples:
(1) This PC had gotten hundreds of hours of auditing, from a few different freezone auditors I knew. He had been processed through OT III, and still was very unstable, in fact frequently contemplating suicide. In session, he was saying “auditing is bullshit, all of it, bullshit”; he related to me how, when he had said this in session to his three previous auditors, they wouldn’t accept his expressing this. They said things like “don’t make negative postulates like that” to him in session, and tell him it wasn’t OK to say that. I made it clear to him that he was perfectly welcome to say whatever was on his mind. He then unloaded all such feelings quite explicitly, and experienced much relief.
(2) A client recently came into session talking about how he told his previous auditor in session that this practitioner’s processing had “crashed” his case and caused great distress; he told me how his auditor responded by admonishing this client for “going into blame”. This ordinarily soft-spoken client, initially given to very low levels of certainty and asking for evaluation and confirmation of things, exhibited great changes of processing characteristic as I simply, encouragingly listened, without interjecting or interrupting to “indicate bypassed charge”; his voice rose in volume, shouting angrily, dropping F-bombs, speaking with power, clarity and certainty. This client went on for close to an hour, with tone arm action reminiscent of a pinball machine point counter. It was a beautiful thing, and when he exhausted the charge and came out the other side, he was a changed being, realizing great ability and a remarkably improved, great state of being. After years of instability despite much processing, since then this client has been stable.
(3) In a session, the client repeatedly said “you are only making me worse, I feel terrible”. The inexperienced auditor, shaken and grasping for a solution, rather than simply being here with the client, resorted to trying to assure the client how much he wanted to help her, completely “went effect”, and watched the client walk out of the room.
Full disclosure: This “inexperienced auditor” was me, back in 1982. While still a student and intern, I had such outstanding success, taking on the cases that the professional HGC auditors of what was at the time the most successful class IV org on the planet were struggling with, and I simply ran into a more challenging situation, and let it introvert me, to the detriment of the client.
The lesson here is: This can happen to any of us, if we have a moment where we lose track of our most basic function:
Recognize when the client is engaged in processing, and then do nothing other than experience and appreciate this, as it is occurring.
Love, Dex