Power is a person's ability to exert influence and control. And also the ability to have choice about what happens to you.

Power dynamics describe how power affects a relationship between two or more people.

There is an inherent power imbalance with your clients:

• You have some knowledge and information that the client doesn’t have (that’s why they’ve come to you!)
• You are ultimately in control of the session
• The client will tend to defer to you for this reason

Another element that influences the power dynamic in the room is the social location of both you and your client.

This includes things like race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, class, education, language, age, etc.

There may be some identities where you hold power in our dominant culture (white, cis-gender, able bodied, neurotypical, educated) and other identities where you don’t - it can be complex.

The more power you hold, the less likely you are to be aware of it. And, as the practitioner, and space-holder, the power you hold comes with great responsibility.

Here are 3 ways you can use the principles of the Wheel to help you navigate power dynamics with your clients:

1. Become aware of your own social location and be aware of how it shows up with clients; you might name the places where you hold power
2. Create choice: talk through the range of possibilities of what might happen during a session; give them as much information up front as possible. Explain any practices before doing them so they know what’s coming and can choose if they want to step in or not.
3. Slow down. Track the pace of attention of your client; if you go faster than they can follow you risk overwhelming them. They will tend to defer to you, so create opportunities for them to pause, check in, and say ‘no’ if they need to.