Power
and the Family
by Judy Lightstone
©2001
Types
of Power:
I offer the following
words and phrases
to use as reference:
Power Over
-- The ability to force
others to do your will through physical or
financial coercion. Power
inherent in social or economic positions, or
physical size or strength,
regardless of skill or ability.
Shared Power
-- Power whose goal is
to uplift or teach others to bring them to parity,
as with a parent/child,
teacher/student, or psychotherapist/client
relationship.
Referred Power
-- The power others give
us because they value, respect, and/or are
attached to us.
Expertise Power
-- The power others give
us because they count on our knowledge and
judgement.
Power With
-- The power to be effective
interpersonally, to persuade, to inspire (not
command) respect.
Power From Within
-- The power of growth
and development inherent in all living things. The
power to change, to overcome
obstacles, to face our own fears, to learn
new skills, to fail,
and to try again.
The
Criticism Defense Cycle
Power can be used to destroy
or create, to belittle others and
over-inflate the self,
or to belittle the self and over-inflate others. We
may call the use of power
to harm or belittle the self passive
power, and to harm or
belittle others aggressive power.
Assertiveness,in contrast,
can be seen as the use of power to enhance and respect both
self and other. Learning
assertiveness, then, can be a way for people to
reclaim their rights
to power and effectiveness in the world without doing
so at the expense of
others. But to learn to be assertive, we must work on
our feelings of self
worth.
To get our needs met we
must act on a sense of self worth and value and give
voice to our own needs, and give equal validity to the needs of others.When
we respect ourselves it is easier to respect others. It then becomes possible
to express our feelings without causing harm by making others feel worthless.
In a relationship, putting another person down will cause them to react
in ways which keep a negative cycle going. Contempt and criticism from
one partner will likely stimulate defensiveness and stonewalling from the
other- which then starts the cycle over. Here is an example of an
assertive approach to problem solving.
Vignette
Mary does child care every
night so John can go out with the "boys". Mary
becomes more and more
resentful of John and their young children. Finally,
Mary initiates an assertive
"conflict". She says:
"I understand that you
work hard all day and need time in the evenings to
relax and unwind, but
I've never pointed out to you that for you to relax
and unwind by going out
every night, you are counting on me to stay home
with the kids, which
is what I do all day. So I don't get to relax and
unwind and I become more
resentful toward you and the kids and unpleasant
to be around. I need
escape time too. I'd like us to work out a way that
we can both get what
we need."
John agreed that Mary
had become very unpleasant to be around (and didn't
hesitate to tell her
so.) But after a number of arguments, they came
around to agreeing on
an experiment. The experiment was that once a week
John would go out while
Mary watched the children, once a week Mary would
go out while John watched
the children, and once a week they both went out
while Mary's mother watched
their children. The other two evenings they
all stayed home as a
family. After two weeks of this experiment, not only
did Mary feel better,
but John felt better as well because he was feeling
closer to his children
and getting less resentment form his wife--and he
still had time to see
his friends.
The word "compromise"
does not adequately describe the process of creating
a "win-win" solution.
Compromise implies that neither side really gets
what she/he wants, whereas
often (though not always) in "win-win"
solutions, both sides
get as much if not more than they wanted originally.
Power--the power of creative
problem solving and acting--is mobilized
rather than suppressed.
*******************************************************************
Helping
a loved one with an eating disorder
Also link to:
Therapy for Eating Problems;
Improving
Body Image, Becoming
a Non Compulsive Eating Family,
Dear Psychotherapist.org,
My girlfriend has a problem, she will not admit
it. She has the classic bulimia profile.
She has been over taking diet pills, energy
drinks, and vomiting for the
last month (I think). She tells me she is not
doing these things but then I either walk in as
she is throwing up or find a ton of diet pills.
She has taken enough in
front of me to make her hands shake (I saw
her swallow at least 5).
She always complains about being fat, though
she is not,
(she weighs about 105-110 and is 5'4").
As I said, she is not over weight at
all. She tells me she has no problem
and to leave her alone about this, but
I can not. She is the mother of our child
and I care and love her very much.
What I need is information on how I may help
her, or how I can get her to
realize she does have a disorder. She
also has a dramatic past life from before
I met her, (she and I have been together over
4 years).
If you can send me some suggestions please
I would be in debt to you.
Thank you,
concerned partner
p.s. I would like to take an extremely
active part in helping her.
**********************
Dear Concerned Partner,
It sounds like she is not hiding her bulimia
very well anymore-- these things may
have been going on for a long time without
your knowing. Perhaps she is
letting you catch her because deep down she
wants you to help. You might
consider gently telling her you are worried
about her and that you care a
great deal about her and don't want her to
get hurt. Be prepared for
her to deny any problems and to disbelieve
that you care. It sounds like
she may have a history of people not caring.
If she has others that are
close to her that are aware of this problem,
you could ask them to do
the same as you are doing- but separately-
one at a time- not all
together. If she hears it from more than one
person
over a period of time it might eventually sink
in. If you confront her
strongly all at once she is likely to panic
and to feel terrible shame.
This could backfire completely. It usually
takes time for someone to
develop the courage to ask for help. Then she's
half-way there. Therapy
takes time too.
Be gentle, loving, persistent and patient.
Good Luck!--- Judy Lightstone
**********************************************************************
Some helpful links:
Something
Fishy Web site on Eating Disorders: Bulimia
Couples
and Family Therapy with Judy Lightstone, PhD, Licensed MFT
**********************************************************************
Auckland PSITM