Feeling Strong

Ethel S. Person

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780061860836
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Interpersonal Relations in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In Feeling Strong, noted psychoanalyst Ethel S. Person redefines the notion of power. Power is often narrowly understood as the force exerted by the politicians and business leaders who seem to be in charge and by the rich and famous who monopolize our headlines. The whiff of evil we often catch when the subject of power is in the air comes from this one conception of power-- the drive for dominance over other people, or, in its most extreme form, an overriding and often ruthless lust for total command. But this is far too limited a definition of power.

Pointing to a more fulfilling sense of self-empowerment than is being touted in pop-psychology manuals of our time, Feeling Strong shows us that power is really our ability to produce an effect, to make something we want to happen actually take place. Power is a desire and a drive, and it central in our lives, dictating much of our behavior and consuming much of our interior lives.

We all have a need to possess power, use it, understand it and negotiate it. This holds true not just in mediating our sex and love lives, our family lives and friendships, our work relationships but in seeking to realize our dreams, whether in pursuit of our ambitions, expression of our creative impulses, or in our need to identify with something larger than ourselves. These separate kinds of power are best described as interpersonal power and personal power, respectively, and they call on different parts of our psyche. Ideally, we acquire competence in both domains.

Drawing from her expertise honed in clinical practice, as well as from examples in literature and true-life vignettes, Person shows how we can achieve authentic power, a fundamental and potentially benevolent part of human nature that allows us to experience ourselves as authentically strong. To find something that matters; to live life at a higher pitch; to feel inner certainty; to find a personality of your own and effectively plot our own life story -- these are the forms of power explored in the book. To achieve and maintain such empowerment always entails struggle and is a life-long journey. Feeling Strong will lead the way.

PART ONE

Power and Powerlessness

1

Seeking Authentic Power

“We are lived by powers we pretend to understand”

—W. H. AUDEN, “In Memory of Ernst Toller”

What constitutes power, who has it, where it comes from, and how it is played out in the real world are much more complicated matters than we generally think. Our desire for power is often far from transparent, our longing for it deeply rooted in the mysteries of our existence such as Auden captures in his remarkable phrase, “We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.” Power originates from a deep psychological source, from the very center of the self.

But what exactly is power? The word derives from the Latin posse, “to be able.” As the dictionary defines it, power is the ability to mobilize, “the strength and potency to accomplish something…the vital energy to make choices and decisions.”¹ While some people restrict the meaning of power to dominance, the ability to compel the obedience of others, power is more fundamentally the ability to act, to effect whatever goal we have in mind. It is the vehicle through which we exert some measure of control over the course of our own lives, but the way we express it takes many forms.

The essence of power is found in the phrase the power to do something not—as commonly thought—in the phrase the power over someone else. John O. Whitney, a management consultant, catches its protean character: “Power is a freighted idea, filled with shifting cargo: power to build, power to tear down; power to hasten, power to delay; power to inspire, power to frighten; power to give, power to withhold; power to love, power to hurt; power to do good, power to do evil.”² It is the ability to say “yes” or “no,” to act or refuse to act, to make things happen or to keep something from happening.

Power is the ability to exert command over the self. Self-control encompasses control of our voluntary actions, but it also entails self-regulation over what are sometimes thought of as our vegetative functions—our appetite and sleep patterns—and over the maintenance of our health. Moreover, self-control encompasses the ability to manage our time, to do our chores, to fulfill our obligations, to order our lives based on the paths we choose and the demands we face. Taken together, self-regulation, self-care, and self-determination constitute agency. And agency is the prerequisite to freedom.

Power is also the ability to maintain relationships, the capacity to mediate the inevitable power clashes that arise in our personal and professional relationships, and to exert influence on others. It is the ability to forgive, to work at our relationships, and to accept the fact that our self-interest may sometimes conflict with that of our loved ones. Overbearing behavior, excessive compliance, and unnecessary defiance are all distortions of interpersonal power.

Power in and of itself is neutral, neither good nor bad, nothing more or less than a force or an energy. While the power of electricity lights up our lives, a tornado has immense destructive power. Ideas have the power to change the world for good or evil. Similarly, the power we exert individually may be constructive or destructive.

In contrast, weakness—the inability or failure to exert power in any significant way whatsoever—can be a major corrosive force in our lives. Not surprisingly, our longing for power is sometimes driven by the powerlessness all of us experience. Feelings of weakness and helplessness can be intensified by neuroses and mental maladies (inhibitions, phobias, major anxiety, or depression) or by limitations in our life circumstances (poverty, poor health, low status), but they are also intrinsic to our experience—our helplessness as infants and our knowledge of death. Unless we have developed some capacity for control over our day-to-day lives, we feel inert, at the mercy of external forces. Seen this way, our impulse to exert power or to form alliances with people who are more powerful than we are is an attempt to combat our feelings not just of personal weakness and vulnerability but also of existential fragility. Seeking power, then, is an antidote for vulnerability. But it is also something more.

The impulse to power is a kind of life force that propels us into the world to sing our song. To experience ourselves as the author of our own actions, based on our own desires, expands our sense of self-identity and self-worth. Power is made up of acts that enable us to feel that we are the creators of our own experience. Almost from birth, we seek power as a way of defining ourselves and our needs in a world that seems bent on shaping us to respond to its demands. As the author and editor Michael Korda has written: “Without power, we might as well be trees, rocks, oysters, whatever you like, estimable objects in the sight of God, useful even, obeying the complex laws of nature but without the capacity to alter the world, to control our own lives.”³ Although Korda’s book Power dispenses plenty of power-mongering advice (for example, positioning your desk at a slight elevation so that people literally have to look up to you), here he is depicting power in a more general, philosophical way, proposing that it enables us to define ourselves and our needs, to shape our own destiny.

Our desire to direct our day-to-day experiences is evident in early life. Years ago, the psychologist Robert Whyte identified this desire in what he calls the “battle of the spoon.” A tiny child, still in a high chair, insists on feeding himself even though the baby food ends up everywhere but in his mouth. But power in the form of agency extends beyond day-to-day choices. Ultimately, it entails being independent enough to frame our own ambitions and to take the responsibility for seeing them through to the finish line. It encompasses our ability to act independently and to appraise our chances of success in our undertakings.

Childhood teaches us a range of different power ploys. We begin to develop a repertoire of interpersonal maneuvers not only to control, influence, or cooperate with others but also to establish a sense of agency, the capacity to nudge destiny instead of simply responding to it. These two, sometimes intersecting, paths of power constitute interpersonal power and personal power.

AUTHENTIC POWER, power that we can own, derives more from a strong sense of self than from any position we might hold. What we want is not simply to be in command; we also want to feel in command. This occurs only when our power, over ourselves or over others, comes from within and is experienced as an integral part of our self. To be sure, how successfully we exert power depends on what sources of power we command. Many young boys may want to grow up to play professional basketball, but they must have the height, the talent, and the opportunity, not just the wish. The wish without the physical gifts is virtually useless, as are the physical gifts absent the drive. The phrase power to describes the thrust of power; the phrase power of describes the sources of power. Whatever our gifts may be, we always need enough self-knowledge to grasp the true range of our potential and enough drive to exercise it. Ethel Merman, we can all agree, had a powerful, commanding voice. But she also had a commanding presence, a powerful theatrical sense. Her very presence on the stage was as brassy, as loud, and as satisfying as that magnificent voice. And she really felt that way, felt that she belonged right there onstage. Asked once if she ever got stage fright, “No,” she replied, “I never thought about it.” Well, then, did she ever get even a little nervous before an audience? “No,” she said. “If they could sing as good as I can, they would be up here and I would be down there watching them.” She owned her gift. This is authentic power.

There are many potential sources of power. One of the most important is self-understanding, because it gives us the capacity to change and grow. We also derive power from intelligence, resourcefulness, likeability, and from an inner sense of strength engendered early in life. There are many intangibles that add to power: visibility, availability, self-confidence, and, when necessary, combativeness. We benefit, too, if we possess concentration and staying power. Other personal sources include physical qualities: brawn, vigor, high reserves of energy, youth in some cultures and age in others. Power can coalesce around some natural gift—creativity or a talent for music, mathematics, or language.

Many important sources of power are innate. This is particularly true when it comes to being assertive and dominant. Here, our similarity to other animals is evident. Whenever horses are “let out,” one of them automatically comes to the gate first. It doesn’t seem to matter if the horse is male or female, large or small, a gelding or not; it has something to do with the horse’s innate spirit. Even if a rider comes to fetch his or her horse and calls for it, the dominant horse comes first.

Some of us possess a natural aptitude for leadership. With my Uncle Phil, it was his charisma—the power of his personality that let him hold sway over people. All his nieces and nephews were in thrall to this idealistic bachelor who always took time to play with us. He challenged us to find a rhyme for the word “orange,” and promised us a million dollars if we could. He was virtually penniless so he must have been sure that no such rhyme existed, though he took the reason for his certainty to the grave with him. Ultimately, it was his communal vision of the world that we bought into, not the entrepreneurial glory propounded by our Uncle Abe. But our allegiance to Phil surely had as much to do with the emotional connection he created as with the strength of his ideas.

Our sources of power are intimately connected to our emotional profiles. Some people, like Uncle Phil, are naturally empathic and nurturant, sensitive to the needs of others without relinquishing a healthy self-interest. This is a kind of power. Indeed, in the emotional realm, it’s hard to overestimate the constructive power of love, compassion, forgiveness, and mercy. Positive feelings confirm our sense of self and add to our sense of intrinsic value, promoting our experience of ourselves as strong and effective. Joy, gladness, ecstasy, and love make us feel expansive, worthy, and important. These feelings, too, are empowering; they enhance our ability to reach out, to form bonds with others, to enter into new activities. Even in bad times, the feeling of hope keeps alive the possibility that we can reorder our lives in such a way that the future will be brighter.

By contrast, certain feelings are connected to a sense of powerlessness. Generally speaking, anxiety, fear and terror, and shame are connected to a sense of depletion and may inhibit our ability to act. Depression, whether its genesis is biological or situational, renders the afflicted person weak and helpless, sometimes even paralyzed.⁴ Because depression is so often associated with a sense of powerlessness, a pharmaceutical house promotes its antidepressant drug Zoloft as “the power that speaks softly.”

There are many other sources of power: access to a good education and, if we are lucky, to mentors. Traditional sources of power reside in our position in life, one to which we may be born or which we may achieve. They include wealth, social access, professional achievement, and relationships with people who are powerful or potentially useful. As Mark Twain once remarked: “In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?”

People sometimes strive for social status or some other kind of power by positioning themselves close to those who have it, sometimes shamelessly so. The writer Sally Quinn tells a funny and perhaps apocryphal story about the Washington hostess Gwen Cafritz and her clumsy but apparently successful campaign to achieve proximity to the powerful: “Years ago, Mrs. Cafritz called the wife of Congressman Joe Casey to invite the couple over for drinks one evening. After Mrs. Casey replied that they would love to come, the conversation continued: ‘I understand your husband has just been nominated to be Secretary of Labor,’ said Mrs. Cafritz. ‘That’s right,’ replied Mrs. Casey. ‘Well,’ continued Mrs. Cafritz, ‘if he gets confirmed, we would love to have you stay for dinner.’”⁵ Social life in this context, as in many others, is not so much about pleasure as it is about positioning ourselves so that other people’s power will rub off on us.

But being powerful in the social world is not a static condition. As Edith Wharton once advised, you should always be nice to young girls; you can never tell whom they will marry. Or, in our time, become.

Power is often role-related, as with parent and child, teacher and student, employer and employee; power is also age-related, the power gradient operating against both the very young and the very old. It may be affected by social, physical, or financial factors, by class, race, and sex. Formal factors can confer power in intimate relationships—the authority of parents vis-à-vis their children, the greater prestige often accorded to a husband vis-à-vis his wife.

The Italian film Swept Away shows how social convention shapes the power gradient. A wealthy socialite and her manservant are shipwrecked on a deserted island. Because of his superior physical strength and basic survival skills, he gains power, and she, who previously scorned him, comes to idealize him. The change in their balance of power is a prelude to a torrid affair in which he proves an ardent and commanding lover; she is emotionally swept away. But the minute they are rescued, social convention takes over, and the socialite barely acknowledges her lover. Yet personal psychology sometimes upends the status conferred on us by role, resulting in unexpected reversals: a self-doubting father leans on his pubescent son to make decisions for him; the king’s wife or mistress is the power behind the throne.

Our sources of power do not reside exclusively in our own abilities and gifts, in our status, or in our emotional strength. Some of our greatest deeds and misdeeds are inspired by the power of conviction, whether religious or political; consider, for example, the acts of heroism and the acts of barbarity so often observed in war. When we add conviction to the list of factors that already includes natural talent, social role, and emotional profile, among other variables, we begin to see how truly complicated the sources of power are.

THE LATE SENATOR THOMAS PRYOR GORE once wrote to his grandson Gore Vidal, “The power to excel is not the same thing as the desire to excel.”⁶ Where does the desire or the drive to assert oneself come from? The origins of power are complicated even when we’re talking about the quintessentially macho version of a character like Don Corleone in The Godfather.⁷ Head of a Mafia family, Don Corleone ruthlessly wields his power over a vast and vicious crime empire. In an interview with the critic Camille Paglia, the Godfather’s creator, Mario Puzo, explained, not so surprisingly, that he loved writing scenes that depict the operation of power, especially those that allowed him to explore the subtle manipulations through which a strong-willed person manifests his power over others.⁸

To read Puzo is to assume that he had intimate knowledge of Mafia leadership. How else would he have acquired such an intimate understanding of the brutal workings of power? From quite a different source, it turns out. In the preface to his reissued novel The Fortunate Pilgrim, Puzo revealed the true inspiration for the Godfather: “Whenever the Godfather opened his mouth, in my own mind I heard the voice of my mother…. I heard her wisdom, her ruthlessness, and her unconquerable love for her family and for life itself…. without [her], I could not have written The Godfather.”⁹ His mother! But why should I be surprised, given that the advancement of “family,” in both senses of the word, is Don Corleone’s central passion? In fact, we think of him as being as much paterfamilias as crime lord, a man who values his power most for enabling him to shore up the wealth, safety, and security of his blood family as well as his crime family.

For those who believe that will and dominance are fueled strictly by testosterone, the origins of the fictitious Don Corleone’s personal power should give them pause. All of us, not just Mario Puzo, acquired our basic ideas about power and powerlessness in intimate relationships, first at our mother’s breast and then at her knee. The writer and feminist June Jordan describes childhood as “the first inescapable political situation each of us has to negotiate…. You are powerless. You are on the wrong side in every respect. Besides that there’s the size thing.”¹⁰ Yes and no.

Who has power and how it is exerted are complicated questions even when we’re talking about a mother and child. Totally weak and dependent at the beginning of life, the infant dramatically shows us the spectacle of power being exerted without conscious will. For playwright Thornton Wilder, the baby is Nero in the bassinette. The psychologists Erik and Joan Erikson describe the baby’s power in terms of how he affects others: “The baby’s genuine weakness exerts a spiritual power over those around him…. Our newborns…are able to move us with mere whimpers and ever-so-faint smiles and even to cause crises among the strongest of us, forcing us to be for a little while more helpfully human.”¹¹ The baby’s inborn but limited repertoire of strategies to enthrall its caregivers include cuteness, helplessness, and cries of distress, what the Eriksons call the baby’s “native powers of seduction.” These powers will become progressively elaborated upon—smiles and tears used ever more consciously—as the baby learns what kind of response they get. However, the baby’s inborn power and his ability to build on that power depends equally on the parents’ capacity for appreciation—what Rollo May called nutrient (or nurturant) power. If the parents do not respond, or worse, if they are abusive, the baby’s power is negated.

Just because the baby’s power depends on the parents granting it a kind of permission to exercise it does not mean that the power is not real. Paradoxically, the baby’s powerlessness evokes its parents’ protectiveness. Clearly, powerlessness and not just power shapes our private and communal lives.

We arrive at one of our earliest forms of self-determination—personal power—when we learn to hold a biscuit between thumb and forefinger. Once we can feed ourselves, we are on the road to dispensing with mother. However, we begin to experience personal power as such only when we intend to assert it. Early in our lives, the push for autonomy and independence is instinctual. But as we become increasingly self-aware, power enters into our mental lives as part of our motivational system, whether in or out of...