National Coalition Building Institute - Foundation and Approach

Foundation and Approach

NCBI was founded by Cherie R. Brown in 1984. Its mission is to help eliminate prejudice and intergroup conflict in communities throughout the world. NCBI's approach is based on Re-evaluation Counseling (or Co-counseling), which was founded in the 1950s by Harvey Jackins. According to RC, humans' willingness to oppress and to be oppressed is a result of distress recordings that are installed by early hurts, usually during childhood, and which are restimulated throughout people's lives. Co-counseling leads to discharge,the process by which the human organism rids itself—by shivering, yawning, laughing, perspiring, raging, and nonrepetitivve talking—of these harmful distress recordings that are the basis of oppression. Jackins writes that "The re-emergence from distress patterns which we co-counsel to achieve is the dependably long-range channel for achieving the liberation of humans from all oppressions."

NCBI trains community leaders who in bridge-building skills to combat intergroup conflicts. NCBI's motto is "Every issue counts" which means that no type of oppression (racism, classism, sexism, etc.) takes priority over another. NCBI focuses on sharing personal stories of discrimination and mistreatment without shaming or blaming the perpetrators and on building allies in other groups so that members of oppressed groups are not isolated.