The most complete body of knowledge there is is at Class VI. It took fantastic amounts of auditing to get it and codify it. Fortunately, it is codified, unlike other levels. For instance, prehav levels are mostly items out of actual GPM's or locks thereon.
You are used to regarding assessment as something you use to find something to audit. More recently, you have regarded assessment also as a way to find the source of an ARC break. "Assessment is an activity which is totally independent of auditing." As you move up from Class IV, you find that assessment commingles with auditing. ARC breaks can occur because of the auditor's failure to recognize the difference between assessment and auditing, and failing to shift his gears from one to the other, or schizophrenically trying to do both at the same time. You must keep them separate. For instance, if the PC originates during your assessment, you must instantly shift into an auditing cycle to handle it. Then you return to the assessment.
"Assessment is addressed to the PC's bank. It is not addressed to the PC." When auditing occurs during the assessment, it is because the PC got restimulated by something assessed. So the PC is now in need of an auditor to duplicate it, so that it can as-is. The auditor must really understand, duplicate, and acknowledge, so that the PC knows that he has been understood. All bad assessing, where the meter isn't operating properly, comes about because the auditor can't shift gears smoothly and rapidly enough, between auditing and assessing.
An auditor can get the idea that assessment is impossible, if he has made mistakes in assessing that resulted in the needle tightening up. The failure, in this case, is really an auditing failure, e.g. the auditor's inadvertent question of the PC, "Is it all right if we assess this list?", an auditing question, since it has not been fully handled, will now get in the way of a successful assessment, in some cases. The question went to the PC, an analytical being. The PC now expects to answer. He may also be insufficiently indoctrinated not to think that he should answer the assessment questions too. But if you don't complete the question cycle, you tend to direct the rest of the assessment at the PC, not the bank. Now the PC feels as though he should be answering each item assessed. You will be assessing through the PC's withheld comm.
When the auditor starts to assess, many PCs go on an automatically withholding state of mind. They got into this state of mind because the auditor disobeyed certain tenets, e.g. the rule that when you ask the PC a question before you assess, you should be sure that the PC has answered it to his satisfaction and that he gets acknowledged, and that everything is handled first, before you start the assessment. And when you have assessed and have gotten an item, and you ask the PC, "Is that your item?", this is an auditing question, which may take awhile for the PC to answer. You have just put him into the middle of his long-standing whirlpool, so don't be amazed if it takes awhile for him to complete the cycle. He could be going, "Yeah: Yeah: That's why ... etc., etc., etc.," without having answered the question, Is it your item?."
"Assessment must never interrupt the auditing cycle, but the auditing cycle may at any time interrupt the assessment.... Therefore the auditing cycle is the senior action." That doesn't mean that you necessarily spend more time auditing than assessing in any given session, especially in R6. Auditing is senior because auditing errors can wreck assessment.
The auditor has two lines going out: one to the PC and one to the bank. When these lines cross, you get sparks. In assessing, you might use the form, "Is it ... ?", which has the form of a question. But don't expect an answer, during the assessment. There is no one home in the bank. Don't fool around with entities. Using questions in assessments can bother a PC. Sometimes it works better to use statements, so as not to make the PC think that he should answer. "You won't get any reaction from the bank if the PC intervenes," but you don't want the PC on a withhold or a decision not to be involved or something that gets in the way. The PC has to sit there with his ruds in and no co-operative "assistance", and in good comm with the auditor, if his bank is to be addressed. Keep in comm and keep your cycles complete. If the PC is in good comm with the auditor, you can then address the bank easily. Therefore, the way to put yourself in good comm with the bank is to put yourself in comm with the PC. But the PC being in good comm doesn't have to mean that the PC is talking. The auditors who assess PCs well are those who are in good comm with the PCs. Repairing assessments, when what is wrong is out-comm, will make things far worse. It invalidates things found on assessment, etc. If assessment goes out, repair the comm cycle. Don't just look for BPC in general. Clean up the comm cycle.
On any case, there is always BPC to be found. That doesn't mean that you should spend much time looking for it. You could spent a lot of time trying to clean the question, "Have I misassigned the bypassed charge?", because the read you would keep getting is from your assigning the BPC to bank phenomena, not session outnesses. It could go on reading for twelve hours: In the presence of a session ARC break, you can go on finding other BPC continually without the PC feeling any better. And you will invalidate and suppress all sorts of auditing work that was done. So "ARC break assessments should begin with, 'Is it a session ARC break? Is it an R6 ARC break? Or is it an R4 ARC break?" It can be as crude as, "What list do I use...." Present-time upsets always seem more important to the PC than past events, however tremendous the past events may be.
(Never use heavy steel electrodes.)
Ninety-nine percent of your assessment trouble is really auditing cycle trouble. Assessment errors, themselves, can be so productive of upset that the fact that there can be another source of ARC breaks can easily be ignored. Even with the comm cycle in perfectly, with the auditor and the PC in complete rapport, the session can go up in smoke because of an assessment error, especially on a wrong goal. For instance, if the PC's item has been bypassed, all you should do, if the PC ARC breaks, is to assess. Don't try to WC it with the PC. "You must not audit [or] address remarks to the PC in the presence of an ARC break.... You never ask the PC a single question, nor do you acknowledge anything the PC says." Experience has taught me that you cannot communicate with somebody who is out of communication. Don't audit in the presence of an ARC break. Don't ask a question; don't acknowledge what the PC says. You assess. If you get confused and go into shock when the PC suddenly throws the cans at you, take a break. That is better than sitting there, slack-jawed. Don't stay near the PC. Don't try to talk to the PC. Get your wits sorted out, find where the ARC break started, and go assess. Find the BPC, indicate it. Get back in comm with the PC, and go on doing what you were doing. "The meter will read during an ARC break, [but only] on what is causing the ARC break." If you find some BPC on a case ARC break list and the PC doesn't go VGI's, know that there is something else. There is a session ARC break or some different case ARC break.
R2H can be done either as an ARC break assessment or as an assessment for BPC, where you stay in comm with the PC during the assessment.
Everything from Level IV on up depends on accurate assessment. So the auditor must be able to shift rapidly and smoothly from assessment to auditing. Just because R6 is mostly assessing, don't think that you can delete auditing from the session. If you try, you will have a disaster.
"You assess when you assess. You audit when you audit.... Don't ever do them both at the same time.... Assessing is straight from ... auditor to bank."