A Grammar of Power in Psychotherapy : Exploring the Dynamics of Privilege

Examining four interaction patterns, the work shows how societal power and privilege shape therapeutic relationships. It blends theory, research, and clinical narratives to reveal hidden forces behind self-disclosure, oppression, and decisions on addressing race, gender, and social differences.

New in paperback. This book reveals four common patterns of interaction in the therapy partnership, and explains how social power dynamics influence those patterns.

Societal issues based in power and privilege inevitably enter the therapy room. In this book author Malin Fors offers an intersectional grammar to unmask the hidden dynamics. Integrating theory, research, and a wealth of clinical narratives, Fors explores four core situations: when therapist and patient have similar levels of social power, when either therapist or patient has more privilege relative to the other, and when both therapist and patient have similar levels of nonprivilege.

This fresh synthesis-for which the author was awarded the 2 APA Division 39 Johanna K. Tabin Book Proposal Prize-offers new language for understanding power dynamics in psychotherapy, counseling, and all treatment relationships. Clinical topics explored include voluntary and involuntary self-disclosure, visible and invisible similarities between patient and therapist, internalized oppression, and choosing whether or not to address privilege explicitly, among many others.

Nancy McWilliams contributed the Foreword to this book, which gives professionals from any therapy orientation a helpful framework for aligning their desire for social justice with healing interactions around race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, age, and other differences.