Over the next few days, consider exploring whether the five good things are present in this relationship. Think about how your own experience of connection and disconnection ebb and flow.
Condemned Isolation
According to RCT, when disconnections are acute and become chronic, people feel walled off from the greater humanity. They may carry internal feelings of blame and shame and be devoid of expectations that their relationships or feelings of chronic aloneness can improve. RCT theorists describe this as a state of condemned isolation and one of the ultimate forms of human suffering (Jordan, 2018). People experience condemned isolation when they feel powerless and at risk of further loss should they express their needs or themselves authentically. Power, and how it is used and experienced, is a central RCT tenet.
Power
The construct of power, as well as an understanding of its role in human development and the social-cultural dynamics that influence a person’s beliefs, expectations, and experiences, is fundamental to the principles of RCT. According to this theory, power is defined as the “capacity to produce a change” (Miller, 1986, p. 198). Power can be expressed in one of two ways: (a) unilaterally, hierarchically, and destructively or (b) collaboratively, and with an intention to empower others. RCT refers to these two power dichotomies as power over and power with.
Exercising power over others involves maintaining one’s control by disadvantaging others. Dominant groups who follow a power-over way of relating use their roles, societal positions, and privilege to exercise power over people and groups who have less power. They empower themselves at the expense of others. Conversely, dominant group members who are mindful of their privileges, and the costs associated with exercising these privileges without concern for its impact on others, may engage in what RCT refers to as power-with relating. Power with creates collaborations, recognizes power differentials, and seeks to bring people up rather than suppress their potential or keep them down.
The appropriate use of power in counseling is a particularly salient construct, given the power differential inherent in the therapeutic relationship. Counselors who enter the relationship with the necessary knowledge, skills, and competencies (ACA, 2014) and an openness to the experiences of their clients position themselves to empower their clients and learn from clients about their respective needs and experiences (Duffey & Haberstroh, 2020). Rather than serving as expert, they respond to their clients with an appreciation for their struggles and a sense of radical respect (Jordan, 2018). This helps support a power-with relationship dynamic and increases the possibility that the therapeutic relationship will grow and be strengthened.
When counselors recognize the role of power and choose to use their power well, they refrain from carrying the image of the expert. Instead, they bring their training, knowledge, and education to the fore while allowing themselves to be authentic and open to being moved and changed through their relationships with clients. This allows for a distinctive form of mutuality critical to growth. It also creates a context in which mutual empathy (Miller, 1986) can occur (see Sidebar 2.4).
Mutual Empathy
RCT discusses the role of mutual empathy, which is distinct from the “one-way empathy” often discussed in mental health literature, as a critical factor in healing (Jordan, 2018). In RCT, mutual empathy is an experience in which a person recognizes their impact on the listener, an experience in which the listener acknowledges being moved by, and because of, the sharer’s experience. This awareness of impact—of mattering and significance—has a profound effect on the person sharing the experience. RCT would say that both people are changed by the experience, and growth and healing occur in that shared context.
The concept of mutual empathy, while powerful, needs clarification. Mutual empathy speaks to the mutuality of the exchange. Like all counseling theories, RCT is clear in articulating that mutuality is not synonymous with “sameness, equality, or reciprocity” (Jordan, 2018, p. 138). Counselors attend to the needs of their clients, and clients are not responsible for caring for the needs of their counselors. Mutuality is related to mattering and significance. Clients are empowered by knowing they matter—knowing their impact. As such, counselors help clients see their impact by being open to being moved by their clients.
A counselor who is hearing a client’s accounting of a loss or difficult situation responds with genuine feeling rather than with a pat phrase or canned therapeutic response (Jordan & Duffey, 2020). Rather than the blank slate response espoused by some theories, RCT calls on counselors to be vulnerable and genuinely connect with their clients. This RCT concept has been popularized by writers such as Brene Brown (2015) and others through the language of vulnerability, which RCT sees as a by-product of strength (Miller & Stiver, 1995).
Sidebar 2.4 Case Study: The Importance of Considering Power Dynamics
Imagine you are working as a substance abuse counselor in an outpatient setting. You receive a referral for Jamie, an African American nonbinary individual referred to you by the criminal justice system. The court ordered Jamie to attend counseling as a condition of probation. Jamie has an arrest history related to substance use and has recently received a felony possession charge. Jamie’s primary goals for counseling are to maintain abstinence from drugs and to get a job.
What are some of the social and institutional power situations that Jamie faced and will continue to face as (a) an ethnic minority, (b) a nonbinary individual, and (c) a convicted felon? How do you see the role of power playing in your relationship with Jamie? How will you use your power to support a productive outcome to Jamie’s counseling?
Relational Images
We discussed relational images and how they form developmentally in the Human Growth and Development in Connection section of this chapter and will briefly address it here. RCT identifies relational images as powerful imprints that influence people’s expectations of how others will behave or respond to them. When people are treated with respect and care, they will likely see others as respectful and caring. If, however, they have suffered abuse or relational injury, they may grow to expect that others will hurt them or cause them pain. As a result, people with hurtful relational images may withdraw from others, expect and prepare for a fight with others, or self-protect in anticipation of further injury. Part of the counseling process involves the client and counselor recognizing these relational images and giving context to their fears, expectations, and behaviors.
Controlling Images
According to RCT, controlling images are a set of categories and expectations developed by the dominant group to distort and disempower a nondominant group (Hill Collins, 2000; Jordan, 2018). Hill Collins (2000) explored the notion of controlling images, a central tenet of RCT, in her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. The chapter “Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images” brings context to RCT’s focus on power structures within social and cultural contexts. According to Hill Collins, racially and ethnically marginalized groups are categorized and stereotyped to validate the oppression and mistreatment of disenfranchised groups.
Controlling images result in social injustices, which are normalized in the larger societal sphere. People are then blamed for these injustices and for their own oppression. The concept of controlling images recognizes that every person carries multiple identities. It is therefore important that people understand the spaces and places they inhabit and recognize where the multiplicity of identities is underscored or silenced. RCT concurs that these controlling images remain in place to systematically keep people in categories and, as a result, bring harm to members of disenfranchised groups. Using an RCT framework, counselors take into account the controlling images imposed on certain groups as they help their clients