A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

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I had a long talk the other day with someone who wanted to understand more about this odd word: “power differential.” Since he associated power with, in his words, “power OVER and force and nasty hierarchies.” It is very important to him to think of us all as equal. Of course, I agreed with him about the fact that we are all equal in our humanity and in our right to be treated with respect and kindness. So, I wondered how I could break down the power differential idea into something that would be more agreeable and understandable to him. Power Differential actually covers a lot of territory. So, in our conversation, we began to break it down into smaller differential chunks. There are role differentials, age differentials, maturity differentials, education and training differentials, income differentials. We could go on. Naming and understanding these differentials, and be this I mean differences, the question becomes not one of over or under, but rather whenever you are on the “more or greater” side of the differential, what are your responsibilities and opportunities? Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

A comment from Todd in response my most recent GoodTherapy.org Ethics Column, touched me. How brave and sincere. And what an important question! I tend to focus on right use of power as any use of personal and professional power to heal harm, repair harm, reduce harm, and facilitate the common good. Inspiring, yes. But given our personal history with power and our dominant cultural frame for power (force), how do we get there? How really do we change historic and embedded habits, beliefs, and patterns?

Here’s what Todd says: “I grew up in a forceful household and that caused me to be the same way in my own home. I do not like it but that was how I was trained and even why I try to do things differently I always find myself back in that forceful position and way of handling things. It is the only way that I know. My kids I know hate me for that. How do I make that change to be a more collaborative person instead of what I am?”

Again, thanks for asking this question. As a psychotherapist and teacher, here’s my take on the process of changing at the level you are seeking. Notice which one or ones appeal to you and experiment with them as tools to help you shift into a more effective and satisfying set of responses.

Notice Something Isn’t the Way You’d Like it to Be
You’ve already taken the first and biggest step. Using your situation, Todd, as an example: You can see how you want to use your power with your kids (and, I assume in other areas of your life); and you can see the negative impact of the way you have been using your power. (Your kids hate you for it.) How painful that must be. Trying is important, but as you notice, not quite sufficient for change.
Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Judith Barr, MA, LMHC

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The Story of Sharon

The discussion of corporate power, its misuses and abuses, abound in our world today. The story of John (see GT Blog 5-7-09) took this issue to a deep place: the place where change must occur in order for our world to recover. This place is within each of us. How do we use our personal power? Misuse and abuse of personal power can undermine the potential of any corporation. And right use of power has the ability to transform it.

An interesting perspective on the issue of power … what if we look at the misuse of power manifested in those who don’t use their power? If those who abuse their power obviously are doing so from early wounds . . . then what about those who don’t use their power when it is needed, out of frozenness, their inability, their own childhood wounds. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Judith Barr, MA, LMHC

Click here to contact Judith and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

The Story of John

The discussion of corporate power, its misuses and abuses, abound in our world today. To name a few: companies allowing tainted products to go to market; corporations laying off loyal employees while the “higher ups” enjoy exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and big profits; corporations receiving huge bailouts and continuing to spend and spend on “perks” . . . including continuing to lobby congress for further bailouts. And still more: mortgage lending abuses leading to widespread foreclosures; corporate contributions to political campaigns as a way to buy favors; corporate control within mass media; use of our planet’s limited resources for corporate gain; inhuman conditions in foreign sweatshops. Are corporations truly concerned with public interest or simply determined to keep their power? And who benefits from this power hoarding?

The following story takes this issue to an even deeper place; the place where change must occur in order for our world to recover. This place is within each of us. How do we use our personal power? Personal power misuse and abuse can undermine the potential of any corporation. And right use of power has the ability to transform it. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Judith Barr, MA, LMHC

Click here to contact Judith and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Recently the U.S. backed President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, reportedly signed a law which legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband by not allowing her to refuse sex, and prevents women from leaving the house without a man’s permission. This is a blatant attack on womanhood…and another example of the abuse of power that is rampant in our world. But this abuse is now out in the open, ready, waiting, and even screaming to be healed.

Rape is an act of power and control. The act of rape is often a defense against ancient inner wounds to a man’s relationship with his own mother, and a reaction to the feelings of powerlessness he may have had in childhood. How could a man be willing to treat women like this . . . unless he’s still angry at the first woman in his life, his mother?

And why would we, women and men, stay silent and allow such an act to go unchallenged? This too has its roots in childhood wounding. Healing this vacuum where effective use of power needs to be cannot stop at the here-and-now level. We all, men and women, need to heal our own early wounds around being powerless – with mother and anyone else in our childhood, whether it be a particular person, a family tradition, a cultural norm. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“When the generativity and responsiveness of our power is guided by loving concern for the well-being of all, we will have an ethical and sustainable world. Power directed by heart. Heart infused with power. This is the key to right use of power.” ~ Cedar Barstow

“Ethics is the ongoing process of applying principles of higher intelligence to the problems of personal and collective existence, and endowing life with values that support the well-being of all. Ethics is the care we show in affecting the lives of others as well as a sense for where one’s greatest value lies in relation to others. Ethics might be summarized as cause and effect in balance, and applied for the greatest good.” ~Glenda Green

Power and how to use it is in the news. The common concept of power as force with any other use being considered weak and naïve is breaking down and evolving up. Studies (www.nonviolent-conflict.org) conclude “that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.” Other studies show that altruism and basic goodness are hardwired in human nature. (Shankar Vedantam, 5/27/07. Washington Post; and Cedar Barstow. (2008). Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics, pp. 240-244.) Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Judith Barr, MA, LMHC

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This Must Be Healed!… Recently, I learned from a friend, that his company was taken over from the inside. This was political. It may have happened in a company, but it could have happened in an educational institution, a religious institution, or in a government. My friend shared with me that his company was taken over from the inside, that people who had been in the company, partners in the company even, for 30 years, were let go . . . all that mattered was money. That the values of the company collapsed . . . all that mattered was money. That the humanitarian efforts the company had so embraced previously were tossed aside . . . all that mattered was money. That the people who had devoted themselves to the company were thrown out . . . all that mattered was money. That the people who remained only mattered in relation to how much money they could bring in . . . all that mattered was money.

At the root, people’s relationships with money and feelings about money preceded the current market turmoil by a long, long time. Those feelings - whether they appear as anxiety, fear, anger, greed, power, helplessness - will be here long after the chaos of our economy right now is calmed down. In fact, the feelings at the root of our relationships with money exist all the time. They are not going to go away, certainly not as a result of things we do on the practical level in the outer world - not by selling our assets, getting another job, destroying the company to which people have been committed for decades, making nothing matter but money! Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

I have been paying attention to the power paradox phenomenon since I was introduced to it by Dacher Keltner (www.greatergood.org). Having researched and studied who gets power and how they use it when they get it, Keltner learned that “the skills most important to obtaining power and leading effectively are the very skills that deteriorate once we have power.” These are qualities of modesty, empathy, engagement with the needs of others, skill in negotiating conflicts, enforcing norms, and allocating resources fairly. Given that years of social and brain research support the understanding that empathy and altruism are human birthrights, it is surprising (and clarifying) to me to discover that “once people assume positions of power, they’re likely to act more selfishly, impulsively, and aggressively, and they have a harder time seeing the world from other people’s points of view.” (Keltner) You can read more about these studies at www.greatergood.org (Greater Good Magazine, Vol. IV, Issue 3) and on pages 244-247 of my book: Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics available at www.rightuseofpower.com.

For those in power differential roles of trust and authority, and all of us are in positions of enhanced power in some areas of our lives, it is extremely important to understand this tendency for inborn empathy and the most effective leadership qualities and skills to deteriorate when we are in positions of power. We have good intentions. We earn power by the socially intelligent use of it. Yet when we get more power, we tend to become more vulnerable to misusing power. When we understand this tendency, we are at great advantage as leaders because we can be extra alert for changes in ourselves and self-correct around them.

Now, why does “power corrupt”? Read the rest of this entry

Dear Members and Visitors to GoodTherapy.org,

Today a virtual gathering over 100 GoodTherapy.org Members enjoyed the fifth teleconference in our Fall Teleconference Series: Good Boundaries: Centerpiece of Successful Relationships presented by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed. Big ‘thank yous’ to Cedar for presenting on boundaries and leading us through the exploration of our own boundary styles.

Cedar is a consultant and teacher on ethics issues. She has been designing, developing, and teaching the Right Use of Power, an Attachment based approach to Ethics since 1994. Her background includes 20+ years as a psychotherapist and 15 years as a teacher. She is the author of books and articles on ethics, counseling with elders, women and independence, and psychotherapy and spirituality. Cedar is also a Hakomi Experiential Psychology Trainer, a member of the Naropa University Adjunct Faculty and maintains a private psychotherapy and ethics consulting practice in the Boulder/Denver area, and teaches both Right Use of Power Ethics and Hakomi nationally and internationally.
We encourage all of you to visit Cedar’s website http://www.rightuseofpower.com On Cedar’s website you can find more information about RUOP, view her extensive workshop calendar, take continuing education mini-courses, and purchase her excellent book on Attachment Based Ethics called: Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics—A Resource for the Helping Professional.

Thanks to all of you who attended today’s event,
Noah :)

Noah Rubinstein, LMFT
Executive Director
http://www.GoodTherapy.org

© Copyright 2008 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Pleasant Hill Bureau - All Rights Reserved.

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“The task is to recognize our interdependence, honor boundaries and differences, and remember connectedness.” - Dyrian Benz

“Find the optimum closeness/distance to enable you to experience your OWN unique center of aliveness and awareness, as well as the other’s unique center.” - Mukara Meredith

Good boundaries are a centerpiece for safe and successful relationships. Boundaries are, as well, the space that people consider part of their identity. Skin is the physical boundary. People also have energetic and emotional boundaries. Inadvertent boundary crossings can be very upsetting. Boundaries are very individual, can be negotiated between people, are often communicated non-verbally. They are influenced by cultural values, styles and expectations. Try checking with your clients about precisely what feels to them like the right distance from you. You may be surprised about the amount of variation. Boundaries serve well to provide a consistent container that can define, contain, and limit relationships. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Given that brain research and universal religious values support basic goodness and natural altruism, why is it that there is so much misuse and abuse of power? This is a question I have been tracking since I was a youngster at camp and I became very distressed and just could not understand why one of my tent-mates had stolen another camper’s comic books.

This is a question that has also concerned Dr. Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California. He has done considerable research about who gets power and how they use it once they get it. It seems we have been “guided by centuries of advice from Machiavelli” and more recently “from Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, (for example: Conceal Your Intentions, Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm Your Victims, Crush Your Enemy Totally, Keep Others in Suspended Terror) to tend to believe that attaining power requires force, deception, manipulation, and coercion. Indeed, we might even assume that positions of power demand this kind of conduct-that to run smoothly, society needs leaders who are willing and able to use power this way.”

New research on power, supported by brain research on hard-wired morality referred to earlier in this chapter, reveals, however, that “power is wielded most effectively when it’s used responsibly, by people who are attuned to and engaged with the needs and interests of others. Years of research suggests that empathy and social intelligence are vastly more important to acquiring and exercising power than are force, deception, or terror. [However,] studies also show that once people assume positions of power, they’re likely to act more selfishly, impulsively, and aggressively, and they have a harder time seeing the world from other people’s points of view. This presents us with the paradox of power: The skills most important to obtaining power and leading effectively are the very skills that deteriorate once we have power.” Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Following last month’s brief notes about Altruism and the Soul, this piece focuses on the development of morality and the ethical values and behaviors that accompany this developmental process. Part III will talk about the Power Paradox and its relationship to the Power Differential. The Power Differential, as mentioned in an earlier column, is the foundation for the need for ethical codes and guidelines for people in professional positions of power and authority. The Power Paradox derives from research pointing to the need for increasing sensitivity to the impacts of the Power Differential on professionals themselves.

Ethical use of power begins in empathy and altruistic pleasure. We are born with a basic moral compass, based in empathy and the natural desire to take action on behalf of others. This is most obvious in the outpouring of care for a family member or a situation in which one is directly involved. Simple moral decisions activate a straightforward brain response. The Snyders have spent a lifetime studying young children as persons. They have consistently found that children have an inborn pre-disposition for justice and caring. “Unless they have been dehumanized by adults….children reveal the capacity to be empathically attuned to each other, to co-create a ‘justice culture,’ to support fairness, safety and the restoration of relationship, and to be naturally interested in what works for the well-being of all.” This is what we would expect from our brain wiring. Of course, when this brain wiring in the frontal lobes is damaged or inoperative, people suffer from a complete lack of empathy and conscience, clinically labeled psychopathy. While not all who meet the definition of psychopath are violent, they live with a lack of the normal empathy and conscience that guides behavior. When in leadership positions, and they are there, these people are particularly difficult if not impossible to deal with.
Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“Altruism is a natural expression of human development and a healing force in society…Caring coupled with imagination and enterprise is the essence of creative altruism. If we ignore our capacity for compassion and care, we diminish the texture of our lives, our ability to help others heal and grow, and our collective potentials for social healing. By opening ourselves to the reality of shared being, we enhance the wonder and richness of the world and liberate the creative and constructive energies of the human heart, mind, and spirit.” —Tom Hurley

Karen Armstrong adds to her statement about the need for an ethic of compassion: “The early prophets did not preach the discipline of empathy because it sounded edifying, but because experience showed that it worked. They discovered that greed and selfishness were the cause of our personal misery. When we gave them up, we were happier. Egotism imprisoned us in an inferior version of ourselves and impeded our enlightenment.” Fascinatingly, recent neurological research by Moll and Jordan Grafman has shown that taking action in the best interests of others is coded in the brain. In a study in which they scanned the “brains of volunteers as they were asked to think about a scenario involving either donating a sum of money to charity or keeping it for themselves,” the results showed that “when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges, but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.” (Moll and Jordan Grafman are neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health. Quote is from an article by Shankar Vedantam, The Washington Post, May 28, 2007.) There is an surviving and thriving impulse and advantage for those who develop and use their capacities for social intelligence. This social intelligence is accessed through the social engagement nervous system referred to on page 91 of Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

What a pleasure to go to the site here at GoodTherapy.org and find responses to the Ethics Column from Sam and Sally and Meg and Rob. I want to appreciate you for your interest in ethics and for your thoughtful and thought-generating words.

Grief and the Sensitivity Cycle

Both Meg and Rob were thinking about grief. So a bit more about that. Grief, of course, has it’s own rhythm and pace, and is a process….neither to be rushed nor clung to. I’m reminded of the Sensitivity Cycle from the Hakomi Method. The Sensitivity Cycle describes the process of becoming more and more sensitive and effective. It has four phases: clarity, effectiveness, satisfaction, and relaxation. All four phases need attention and organically move on to the next. In thinking of grief, for example, first you need to be clear about what you’re grieving, then take some kind of effective action, then find and integrate some satisfaction from the action you took, and then relax and let go—so that you will have made space for a new cycle. It is easy to get stuck at each phase and with grief it seems that the most common place to get stuck is in letting go. Getting unstuck and letting go when it is time seems to involves having a “gut” sense of the timing. It also involves trusting that letting go of the process of grieving for a person, thing, or event, doesn’t mean letting go of it all, but rather knowing that you have integrated it, or the learning from it, within you.

In responding to Sally who is looking for some more depth, I’d like to say something about two kinds of ethical decision-making edited from pages 59-61 of my book: Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics. I find that we as professionals most often think of ethical decision-making simply and solely as the second kind I describe as complex decision-making without putting conscious attention toward ordinary moment, every day kind of ethical decision-making. Read the rest of this entry

by David Walton Earle, LPC

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Use anger correctly and positive results can happen! This statement is very shocking, for it is in direct contradiction with experience. Most people have witnessed the sharp and cutting blade of anger as it slashes and cuts its victims and have experienced the unresolved anger that creates emotional distance be-tween themselves and their loved ones. It is natural to experience anger, but how can it achieve positive results?

When anger destroys a relationship, it was not used correctly. When the ex-pression of anger works in a positive direction, it clarifies to others the bounda-ries necessary for all successful and healthy relationships. Anger communicates a warning that a perceived violation has occurred and provides the necessary energy to do what is necessary to correct the situation. As strange as it may ap-pear, without anger there can be no successful relationships! Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Ethics as Soul Work

I slept and dreamt that life was joy;
I awoke and saw that life was service;
I acted and behold, service was joy.
–Rabindranath Tagore

I appreciate your interest in using your personal and professional power with wisdom and compassion. I think of ethics as right use of power. In fact, right use of power and influence is the biggest container for ethics since it includes social consciousness and personal development. In this greatest context, it is about reverence for life, treating all people with respect, and acting honorably. It requires a high level of consciousness development and understanding of both harm and empowerment.

This context for ethics includes and honors the value of prescribed codes and guidelines and goes beyond into the realm of repairing harm, restoring relationships, and promoting well-being. Ethical behavior in this framework requires a high level of consciousness development and understanding of both harm and empowerment.

This is the first of a series of articles devoted to exploring issues of power in our personal and professional lives. Expect a new column every 4-6 weeks.

In working with ethical sensitivity from a soul deep point of view, I think there are a number of things that are asked of us as healers and as human beings. Read the rest of this entry

Written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.

Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

RIGHT USE OF POWER IS URGENTLY IMPORTANT.
Right use of power and influence is surely one of the most important issues facing us in our emerging globally interdependent world. Interest in right use of power takes us in the dynamic realms of roles, relationships, and trust. We engage with finding out how we impact others and then with developing the skills and compassion to be more and more effective. This is inspiring and valuable process.

UNDERSTANDING MORE THAN ONE ROLE
Some of you are clients or potential clients. Some of you are therapists or helping professionals. My intention is for this article to be of value in whatever role you are in. All of us have personal experience on both sides of relationships of trust: as clients, patients, students, children, committee members….and as therapists, social workers, parents, teachers, guides, coaches, committee heads, body workers, office managers. We have a sense for what each role feels like, but it is often hard to remember what the other role experience is. One of the hallmarks of the right use of power is to make the dynamics and expectations of each role open, clear, and understood by all. Read the rest of this entry