The whole case gain to be expected from a pc at Level 0 is an increase of ability to talk to others.

At Level 0 we do not expect or lead people to expect any sudden miracle of physical or mental recovery. Rather, we emphasize that we are getting their feet on the ladder and as they progress up through levels they will achieve all they ever hoped for and more.

Jumping to higher levels leaves the lower level disabilities untouched and while trying to audit somebody at, say, Level III, we will find ourselves struggling with things that should have been handled at Level 0.

Further, this target is the one that beginning pcs make the most gains on in my experience. I recall one near miracle on a girl who couldn’t bring herself to talk to her parents and all I did was get her to tell me what she’d say to them if she could talk to them.

Recalling is too steep for a starting pc. They can’t recall well really until about Level IV when they can be cleaned up on their ARC Breaks with Life.

Here we have the whole design of Level 0:

“Recover the pc’s ability to talk to others freely.”

If you realize that a pc can’t be in session unless he is willing to talk to his auditor, you will also realize that he can’t be in life until he is able to communicate freely with others.

Thus any process that does not forward this end is not for Level 0, no matter how frantic the case may be to become clear yesterday.

The more hysterical a pc is about getting advanced processes or a case gain, the less strenuous the process administered must be. The psychiatrist erred on this one point and it wiped him out as a social benefactor. The more desperate the case, the more desperate were his measures. He was just echoing his patients. It is very important for an auditor to realize this one datum for it is the second guiding rule of Level 0. It is a very senior datum. One must not become desperate and use desperate measures just because the pc is desperate or the family or society is desperate about the pc. The worse off the pc, the lighter the approach to that pc must be.

Psychotics (real, gibbering ones) are below auditing treatment in sessions. The measure used for them should be just rest and isolation from their former environments. And the first process used should be just getting the person to realize you are safe and safe to talk to.

So, although a few cases are psychotic, this still holds good. The auditor must get the pc to realize he is safe — won’t punish, scold, reprimand or betray confidences — and that the auditor will listen.

It doesn’t give the auditor a withhold to not speak of another’s withholds. One can only withhold what one oneself has done. What the pc did or said isn’t even subject for a session on the auditor for withholding it had no aberrative value.

Even when we’re Class IV, we still start all our pcs at the pc’s level, which is, for a beginning pc, Level 0.

So what we are trying to do with our pcs at Level 0 is the following:

1. Recover the pc’s ability to talk to others freely;

2. Teach the pc by example the auditor is safe to talk to and won’t scold, reprimand, punish or betray, and

3. Refuse to engage in desperate measures just because the pc is desperate; and therefore get a real, lasting gain for the pc.

A routine is a standard process, designed for the best steady gain of the pc at that level. The remedy is different. It is an auditing process which is designed to handle a non-routine situation. The only real remedy at Level 0 is patching up having failed to hear or understand the pc. The rest is all done by routine. The Case Remedies are at Level II and while we all realize that every Level 0 case needs a lot of Level II remedies, we also know that no remedy will work well until the pc is able to talk to others. When you run into trouble at Level 0, there are only 3 reasons possible:

1. The pc was not run in a direction or on a process to improve his or her ability to communicate to others;

2. The auditor failed to understand the pc’s statements, either words or meanings; or

3. The auditor engaged in desperate measures, changed processes, or scolded or did something to lower the pc’s feeling of security in the session.

That’s all. As you go on up through the levels, you will find many other ways a pc can get upset. But at Level 0, the pc is not close enough to reality on his own case to even be touched by these at first. The pc is a long way off when he first starts getting audited. He can only approach his own case by degrees. So a pc, no matter how wildly he or she dramatizes at Level 0, is really only capable of a reality of the smallest kind about self. And such a pc must be able to talk before anything else can happen. Pcs can be ruined by someone who doesn’t grasp that simple fact. Psychiatrists, failing to grasp it, murdered several million people — so it’s no light matter. It’s an important one.

A pc at Level 0 usually can’t even conceive of an overt (a harmful act) done by himself. When they can, they go religiously guilty and seek to atone or some such thing. Become a monk. Or commit suicide.

The reason 33 1/3 percent of all psycho-analytic patients are said to have committed suicide in their first three months of treatment is not that they “came too late” but that a lot of wild data was thrown at them to get at their “source of guilt” and they went head on into the reactive bank, sought to demonstrate their “guilt” by making others guilty and killing themselves.

You don’t want anything out of the pc but an increased ability to talk relaxedly to others without fear, embarrassment, suspicion or guilt. So all processes at Level 0 are arranged accordingly.

To give all possible wordings of routines that will accomplish the above is completely beyond need.

Once you have the idea of it straight, you can invent them by the dozens.

One doesn’t even have to think of a particular pc. All Level 0 processes are good only when they apply to all pcs.

The starting routine is the most basic of all auditing routines. It is simply “What are you willing to talk to me about?” Pc answers. “What would you like to tell me about that?”

At Level II, the first question alone becomes a remedy. Here the two questions make a routine — and a very effective one it is!

This is how the auditor puts together Routine 0-A:

1. Make a list of people or things one can’t generally talk to easily! That includes parents, policemen, govemments and God. But it’s a far longer list. The auditor must do this. It must never be published as a “canned” list.

2. Using any one of the listed items: “If you could talk to____(listed item) what would you say?”

All right, that’s all there is to finding the commands for Routine 0-A.

One doesn’t get the pc to do the list. The list isn’t done in session. The auditor does it himself on his own time. And each auditor must do his own list for his pcs and add to it from time to time as he thinks of new ones.

The pc isn’t necessarily given any choice of items. The auditor picks one he thinks may fit. That’s easy to do after one session. The pc keeps complaining about parents. OK. Run 0-A on parents.

And flatten it!

By flatten is meant to use that one subject until the pc is darned sure he or she could now talk to the item chosen. If the pc still wants to abuse the item, it isn’t flat. If the pc still wants to do something about the item, it is not flat. When the pc is cheerful about the item or no longer fascinated with it, it’s flat.

Remember, there’s no need to find out what the pc can’t talk to. In fact, most cases you’re better off just to take an item of your own for 0-A and use it. May seem strange, but you’ll have a smoother time of it with the pc. Further you’ll not restimulate (churn up) the pc’s bank so hard.

The second routine consists of things to talk about.

One puts the routine together this way:

1. The auditor makes a list (not from the pc but himself) of everything he can think of that is banned for any reason from conversation or is not generally considered acceptable for social communication. This includes non-social subjects like sexual experiences, W.C. details, embarrassing experiences, thefts one has done, etc. Things nobody would calmly discuss in mixed company.

2. An item from the list is included in the auditing command, “What would you be willing to tell me about?” Add the item you choose.

3. When they have “run down” (as in clocks) ask them, “Who else could you say those things to?”

4. Rechoose a subject on the list.

5. Repeat 3.

6. Continue to repeat 4. and 5.

Above all, don’t be critical of the pc. And very calmly hear and seek to understand what the pc said. (You never, by the way, seek to find out why the pc reacted or responded in some way. A real blunder at Level 0 is “Why did you feel that way?” Or “Why do you think you can’t say that?” You’re not after the causes of things at Level 0. You will find out why at Level VI!) At Level 0, just keep them talking while you listen. And you use only the subject chosen to keep them talking.

Routine 0-C is, of course, old R-1-C renamed. It is done without a meter and it has any subject under the sun included in its command. It is elsewhere covered.

In all the above routines it is vital not to alter the commands given above.

There are many more possible routines. But to be a Level Zero Routine it must have as its goal only freeing up the ability of the pc to talk freely to others.

This is not a level to be regarded with a brush-off. It takes a lot of skill to restore a pc’s ability to communicate freely.

When an auditor has that skill he will succeed at all higher levels.

When a pc has that skill regained, his world will look to him to be a far, far better place.

So it is very important to get over this first hurdle. And very important not to dodge it and try to climb the hill anyway. It will become an awfully steep hill.

[This HCO B is corrected by HCO B 26 December 1964, Routine O-A (Expanded).]