The Power We Carry Into the Room

There is a particular kind of power that enters a therapy room before the therapist says a word.

It is not necessarily the power to control another person. It may be the power of expertise, of language, of professional authority, of knowing how the system works. The therapist knows what confidentiality means. The therapist understands diagnosis. The therapist knows how sessions are structured, when they begin and end, and what happens if treatment is terminated.

The client enters with a different kind of knowledge.

They know what it feels like to be inside their own life.

That distinction matters.

Therapists sometimes talk about power as though it is something that exists primarily in obviously coercive relationships. We recognize power when someone threatens another person, controls access to money, determines whether someone can leave, or uses institutional authority to impose consequences.

But power is much more ordinary than that.

Power is also the ability to define what is happening.

Who gets to say what the problem is?

Who gets to determine what counts as progress?

Who decides whether a reaction is reasonable or excessive?

Who determines whether an emotion is important or merely defensive?

Who gets believed?

And perhaps most importantly: who gets to tell the story?

These questions are present in every therapeutic relationship.

The therapist has power because the therapist has a framework. Cognitive therapy sees certain things. Emotionally focused therapy sees others. Structural therapy attends to hierarchy and boundaries. Narrative therapy asks different questions about identity and meaning. A systemic therapist looks for patterns that extend beyond the individual.

Every framework illuminates something.

Every framework also leaves something in shadow.

This is one of the reasons I have become increasingly interested in the layers through which we encounter another human being. There is a clinical layer: What diagnosis, symptom, behavior, or treatment target am I seeing? There is a human layer: What is it like to be this person? There is a relational layer: What is happening between us right now? And there is a systemic layer: What larger relationships, institutions, histories, cultures, and structures are shaping this interaction?

Each layer changes what we notice.

And what we notice changes what we do.

That means that therapeutic intervention is never simply a technical act.

It is also an act of attention.

When I focus on one thing, I necessarily focus less on something else.

If I see a partner as avoidant, I may become interested in helping them engage. But if I look more closely, perhaps that withdrawal is an attempt to prevent escalation. If I see the other partner as pursuing, I may conceptualize them as demanding. But perhaps their pursuit is an increasingly desperate attempt to establish that the relationship still matters.

The labels may be clinically useful.

They can also become prisons.

This is particularly important in couples therapy because the therapist is entering a relationship that already has its own system of meaning. Each partner has a version of reality. Each has accumulated evidence. Each has a history of being misunderstood by the other.

And then the therapist arrives.

Suddenly there is a third person who can potentially validate one version of reality.

That is power.

Even when the therapist does not intend to take sides.

Sometimes therapists try to solve this problem by attempting to become completely neutral. But neutrality itself can become misleading. We are never outside the system we are observing. Our questions influence the conversation. Our facial expressions influence what gets said next. Our timing matters. The words we choose communicate hypotheses.

The therapist is not merely observing the relational system.

The therapist becomes part of it.

This does not mean that therapists should become paralyzed by self-consciousness. It means that they should become curious about their influence.

What happens when I ask this question?

What happens when I interrupt?

What happens when I validate one person's pain?

What happens when I challenge the other person's behavior?

What happens when one partner looks at me after saying something difficult?

What am I tempted to do in that moment?

And why?

These questions transform power from something hidden into something that can be examined.

Perhaps the goal is not to eliminate power.

Perhaps that is impossible.

The goal is to make power more accountable.

This applies far beyond therapy.

It applies to marriage.

Parents have power over children. Employers have power over employees. Teachers have power over students. Doctors have power over patients. Institutions have power over individuals. Governments have power over citizens.

And intimate partners have power over one another.

The person who cares less may sometimes have more relational power. The person who controls the finances may have more practical power. The person who is more emotionally regulated may have more influence during conflict. The person who is willing to leave may possess enormous power over the person who desperately wants the relationship to continue.

Power is constantly moving through relationships.

Sometimes it protects.

Sometimes it organizes.

Sometimes it liberates.

Sometimes it wounds.

The critical question is not simply, "Who has power?"

It is, "What happens to the relationship when power is exercised?"

Does the other person become smaller?

More frightened?

More silent?

More dependent?

Or do they become more capable of being themselves?

That may be one of the most useful definitions of ethical power.

Power at its best does not require another person to become less.

It creates conditions in which another person can become more.

This is one reason humility is so important in therapeutic work. Humility does not mean pretending that the therapist has no expertise. It means recognizing that expertise is partial.

I may know something about trauma.

The client knows something about their life.

I may understand attachment.

The couple knows what it feels like to wake up beside one another.

I may recognize a relational cycle.

The people inside the cycle know what it costs them.

Good therapy requires bringing those forms of knowledge together without allowing one to completely erase the other.

Perhaps this is what it means to carry power responsibly.

Not to deny it.

Not to fear it.

Not to pretend it does not exist.

But to notice it.

To question it.

To remain open to being wrong.

And to remember that the person sitting across from us is not merely someone we are helping.

They are someone who can change us as well.

The moment we forget that is perhaps the moment power becomes dangerous.

Because when I believe that I am only the observer, I no longer have to examine how I am participating.

And when I stop examining my participation, I can begin to confuse my perspective with reality.

The room becomes smaller.

The relationship becomes more hierarchical.

And the person sitting across from me becomes increasingly defined by the story I have constructed about them.

Perhaps ethical therapy begins with something much simpler:

I know something.

You know something.

Neither of us knows everything.

And what becomes possible between us may depend on whether we can remain curious about what the other person sees that we cannot.