What is it?
It’s called Co-Counselling. The ‘co’ makes it quite different from the normal one-way therapeutic model. By ‘normal’ we mean where a trained, experienced, qualified, accredited, insured practitioner uses their professional expertise to work with an individual client in exchange for payment - where the client may or may not have any knowledge of the process, and it may or may not be client-led.

By contrast, co-counselling is a reciprocal way of working that takes place between peers. It is based on an equal exchange of time and skills, with no money changing hands. Neither party is the expert: instead both have been trained in the same set of skills. They take it in turns to be ‘client’ and ‘counsellor’ and to work on their own issues and direct their own process. The client in CCI co-counselling is always responsible for choosing what to work on and what kind of help to ask for, i.e. is wholly in charge of the session (client and counsellor do not work co-operatively). The counsellor only intervenes in line with one of three levels of ‘contract’ which are defined in CCI's principles, and with one of the permitted co-counselling interventions. There is also an agreed set of ground rules.
The counsellor has no brief to give any subjective feedback or any ongoing responsibility for the client once the session is complete.

Co-Counselling International (CCI) was started in 1974 by John Heron, then director of the Human Potential Research Project at University of Surrey. The original theory of co-counselling is taught in CCI fundamentals training courses, where participants learn techniques for catharsis or ‘discharging’ emotions, increasing self-awareness and self-direction, and living a fuller and more optimal life that is less influenced by their past experiences and wounds. However, the theory is not seen as a constraint within CCI, and co-counsellors draw on the whole range of psychotherapeutic theory and methods including analytical, cognitive-behavioural and transpersonal as well as humanistic approaches. The principal constraint is that the client must be able to work in a self-directed way.

How could it help you?
It’s a way of:

• Learning valuable clienting skills for your own personal growth
• Getting personal and emotional support for oneself
• Working with people with similar values / attitudes / approaches
• Becoming part of a local group and gaining access to a wider community
• Making contacts
• Learning a simple and powerful set of interventions for personal growth and change.

What are the benefits?
It is:

• Often stimulating and challenging in surprising ways
• An effective method for addressing stubborn issues
• An excellent way of reducing stress and managing demanding workloads
• A form of inner fitness: the emotional equivalent of a workout in the gym or your own emotional maintenance programme
• A way to receive some really good listening and attention for yourself
• An different way of working, without taking responsibility for your co-counselling client
• A way to re-evaluate, move forward and plan action to create change in all aspects of life
• Flexible to arrange and free to use. The only outlay is for a single training (which is charges at a low cost to keep it accessible to all)
• A way to increase anger-management capacities
• Increased capacity to tolerate mixed feelings (= ambivalence)
  towards people.  This helps maintain rather than destroy relationships.

The above was written by Steve Roche and Sue Gray

What happens in a session
Check out the youtube video about this where co-counsellors say what might happen in a session. 
http://www.youtube.com/user/richardmills777

Bear in mind that as client (i.e. the person who is being listened to) you have total control over what you say and do: the session will go in any direction you like, and the counsellor is there to support you with their attention and helpful suggestions which are called interventions.  You learn about all of this on the course.

Can co-counselling help people become more confident and assertive?
Check out the YouTube video about this:
http://www.youtube.com/user/richardmills777

Note: assertiveness can mean being more able to:

ask for things
accept a rejection
speak your mind
say how you feel (happy, sad, proud, angry, afraid etc)
give and receive compliments
be seen, without shame

How is a session set up and structured?
 - equal time as counsellor and client (i.e the person who is being listened to)
 - both have learned the whole method on a basic skills course that lasts about five days
 - it's a peer relationship of equals, and no money changes hands
 - the client is in control of their session, and dictates the depth and content of their work
- confidentiality is an important rule

Check out the YouTube video about this:
http://www.youtube.com/user/richardmills777

The above three sections were written by Richard Mills