1. THE DYNAMICS OF POWER IN THERAPY
Gillian Proctor 2018
Programme leader, MAPC, University of Leeds

2. Exercise What did this tell you about your responses to power?
What do we do with power?
How do you feel to have it?
How do you feel about others having it?
What’s the relationship between others having it and you having it?
Is it something you can have?

3. Plan of talk Why I studied power Why does societal power matter?
How to think about power – theories
Starhawk
Foucault
3 aspects of power in therapy
Societal power and class

4. Why power?
Social justice is important to me. Feminism and identity politics in LGB movement in my early 20’s gave me a way to conceptualise an alternative to the power, control and authority that I always had contested.
Experience of therapy as client
Confusion in language and concepts about power in therapy literature.
How to recover from Masson (1989)?

5. Powerlessness and psychological distress
Societal (structural) power and distress – women, ethnic minorities, working class, young LGBTQ people.
Experience of powerlessness – abuse e.g. Finkelhor (1986)
Experience of powerlessness – all types of distress, e.g. self-injury, depression, anxiety, eating distress, psychosis
Class – deprivation biggest societal factor associated with distress. Austerity, distress rocketed.
Intersectionality. No identity characteristic can be singled out. All associated with deprivation, discrimination and distress.

6. POWER IS: DYNAMIC RELATIONAL EVERYWHERE UNAVOIDABLE STRUCTURAL
POST-STRUCTURAL

7. STARHAWK (1987) POWER-OVER (Coercion)
POWER-FROM-WITHIN (Personal Power)
POWER-WITH (Arendt) (Collectivity)
I suggest that in therapy, our aim should be to increase power-from-within of client and therapist and minimise therapist power-over client
Do we miss the potential for power-with? How could we use more?

8. Foucault Tactics and strategies of power – local and specific
Resistances
Discursive practice – power creates knowledge- regimes of truth
Stylisation of the self through normative rules – power and identity
Therapy as a stylisation of the self. How can a client resist?

9. POWER IN THERAPY
ROLE POWER
HISTORICAL POWER
SOCIETAL POWER

10. Exercise for later
Think about a particular therapy relationship you are in and discuss each of the three aspects of power from the perspective of both therapist and client
How can this help you understand the dynamics of power you experience in this relationship?
Any ideas for how to increase the power-from- within of each person, the power-with in the relationship and reduce any power-over?

11. ROLE POWER THERAPIST Model of therapy Personal values and ethics
Context of role – institutions, professional codes, legislation
Interaction
CLIENT
Model of therapy
Personal values and ethics
Context of being a client – stigmatisation, how see own problems
Interaction

12. HISTORICAL POWER THERAPIST Own history – experiences of powerlessness
Triggers
Reactions – processes in interaction
Interaction
CLIENT
Their history – experiences of powerlessness
Triggers
Reactions – processes in interaction
Interaction

13. SOCIETAL POWER THERAPIST Own position – privilege, oppression.
Defences, how like to be seen
Prejudices, how see others.
Interaction
CLIENT
Their position – privilege, oppression.
Defences, how like to be seen.
Prejudices, how see others.
Interaction

15. SOCIAL CLASS Terminology out of date. Upper/middle/working class.
Thatcher – no such thing as society. Class denied.
Economic inequalities risen
Underclass (Jones 2016). Welfare cuts, stigma and media scapegoating
Privileged class, boarding school – abandonment, emotional neglect.
Counselling middle class profession by ideology
Intersectionality: e.g. asylum seekers part of underclass with even less access to power/resources

16. RELEVANCE TO THERAPY Values, aspirations, aims, goals
Attitudes and prejudice
Political beliefs
Limits of therapy
Access to therapy training
Client voice
Context of counselling; working conditions eg IAPT
Access to counselling for clients
Association of counselling with ‘back to work’ agendas

17. IMPLICATIONS FOR COUNSELLORS
Awareness of political context on clients and ourselves
Awareness of context of counselling
Self awareness re own class and attitudes
Awareness of limitations of focus on intra-psychic factors
Awareness of dynamics of power with respect to class in therapy relationship – submission, acquiescence, authority

18. Ethics of power
“I do not think a society could exist without power relations. If by that one means the strategies by which individuals try to direct and control the conduct of others. The problem, then, is not to try and dissolve them in the utopia of completely transparent communication but to acquire the rules of law, the management techniques, and also the morality, the ethos, the practices of the self, that will allow us to play these games of power with as little domination as possible.” (Foucault, 1980, p. 298; cited in Fish, 1999, p. 67)

19. References
Finkelhor, D A Sourcebook on Childhood Sexual Abuse. London: Sage.
Fish, V Clementis’ Hat: Foucault and the politics of psychotherapy. In I. Parker (ed.) Deconstructing Psychotherapy. (pp ). London:Sage.
Foucault, M Power and knowledge. Brighton: Harvester Press.
Jones, O Chavs: The demonisation of the working class. London: Verso.

20. Kearney, A. 2018. Counselling, class and politics. (Ed. G
Kearney, A Counselling, class and politics. (Ed. G. Proctor) Monmouth: PCCS Books.
Masson, J Against Therapy. London: Fontana.
Proctor, G The dynamics of power in counselling and psychotherapy: Ethics, politics and practice. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.
Starhawk Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery. San Francisco, CA, US: Harper Row.