ABSTRACT
This chapter examines issues of power that may arise, how they may play out in various types of therapy as well as in spiritual direction, and what questions therapists and directors might ask themselves about their own practice. An imbalance of power in any relationship is a reflection of the culture and ethos of the community in which it exists, and issues of power and oppression are specific to, and affected by, the society where they are to be found. Historically, psychodynamic practitioners would have been seen in the role of the expert who, while maintaining an extremely boundaried position, would interpret what their clients brought to therapy and would then make a clinical diagnosis. The development of more relational models of therapy recognises that empathic attunement is a two-way, rather than a one-way, process, and that the therapist too is changed by the encounter.
