Now and then, quite rarely, you find an auditor who in being audited “gets off” other people’s withholds.

Example: “Yes, I have a withhold from you. Charley said you were insane.”

Example: “Yes, I have a withhold. Mary Agnes has been in prison.”

One also finds public pcs trying to do this occasionally.

The facts of the case are that it doesn’t do anybody any good casewise to “get off” other people’s withholds.

Essentially, a withhold by definition is something the pc did that was an overt act, which the pc is withholding and thus keeping secret.

Thus, getting off things that somebody else did is not helpful to a case as such things aren’t aberrative to the pc.

But now let’s look at this more closely.

If a pc is “getting off” other people’s withholds he himself must have a chain of similar overts and withholds that are his own. Getting off other people’s withholds is then seen as a symptom of the pc withholding similar actions of his own.

Let us then complete the two examples above.

Auditor: “Do you have a withhold?”

Pc: “Charley said you were insane.”

Auditor, correctly: “Do you have a similar withhold of your own?”

Pc: “Er-uh — well actually I told the class you were crazy last month.”

Auditor: “Do you have a withhold?”

Pc: “Mary Agnes has been in prison.”

Auditor: “Ok. Do you have a similar withhold of your own?”

Pc: “Er-uh — well — I spent two years in a reform school and I’ve never told anybody. “

You can assume that any pc who is trying to get off withholds someone else had is making a sort of out-of-valence effort to avoid giving his own withholds.

This applies, of course, to all overts as well. Somebody giving other people’s overts (which aren’t aberrative to him) is actually failing to give overts of his own which are aberrative to him.

This is the mechanism behind the fact that if a pc is nattering about somebody the pc has overts on that somebody. The natter is “other people’s overts”. Getting these off does not help the pc. Getting the pc’s off does. Never be misled by a nattering pc. Never be hooked into letting him get off other people’s overts and withholds.