Power And Powerlessness Essay

When I hear the word antecedent many a(prenominal) thoughts come to mind, but I olfactory property military force has many different forms. We could assume that spot means more m acey, a big title, a corner office, a more generous budget, or a seat at the tcapable. scarce that may not be true for every sensation. For some, world-beater may mean having the ability to control 1s c beer destiny in keeping with personal set and interests. Or king could mean having the opportunity to be creative as a project lead with pop out too much interference from others. Or power could mean making decisions with trust and autonomy, such that no ane gutter easily override your decisions. To me, power is control and the capacity to sire about change. For example, the United States government, they control everything and also other countries. Our government has the power to create and print m unrivalledy, regulate interstate and international trade, name treaties and direct foreign pol icies, declare war, provide an army and navy, establish post offices, and make laws necessary to carry out these powers.In addition to their elusive powers, two the national government and state governments share the power of being able to collect taxes, build roads, borrow money, establish courts, make and use laws, charter banks and corporations, spend money for general welfare, and take private airplane propeller for public purposes. military force is also usurpd through possession or achievement of the following resources trust, money, status, knowledge, professional degrees, goods, services, votes, public support, information, ability to influence the media, and relationships with unchewable people. Power can be derived from ones authority to make decisions in organization s or by virtue of ones gender, ethnicity, companionable class, or personal attributes, such as appearance and charisma. plurality often acquire power by establishing alliances and coalitions with o thers to support or countervail various policies or decision-making options.Workers in social service organizations also acquire power because they often decide whether individual clients receive services, resources, or referrals. But how would it finger to not stick power, a sensation of being out of control with no apparent solution to help you to regain control, impotency. When the drop of capability to affect the realities of lifespan that you cant control such as how others act towards you, if you will get a job you want, what the defy will be like, or if an accident will occur. Powerlessness can be simply narrowd as the absences of power resources. However, the Mother of mandate practice, Barbara Solomon (1976), defines impotence as a product of the interaction between individuals and the social structures that limit life opportunities for them Powerlessness is defined here as the unfitness to manage emotions, skills, knowledge, and/or material resources in a way tha t efficient performance of valued social roles will lead to personal gratification.The power deficiency so often seen among minority individuals and communities stems from a complex and slashing interrelationship between the person and his relatively hostile social environment. When you feel powerless, you feel afraid to express your needs because you fear that what little you induce will be taken from you. You may have l put one overed impotency if you were kept in powerless positions repeatedly and/or over large periods of time, possibly during childhood, by those who used orthogonal forces (money, physical strength, legal status, and/or military force) to control you. You may have been outcryd as a child, a partner or spouse, an employee, a soldier, or you may have been the victim of racial or ethnic attacks. Such prolonged abuse can cause you to become afraid to feel even your profess needs, to admit to yourself that you need something, you become immobilized and in cert ain critical shipway you stop growing, you cease to thrive.When powerlessness is learned, it becomes self-perpetuating, even if the external forces are no longer there. An abused child may grow up to feel permanently powerless as an adult, even though his or her parents no longer have physical or economic power over him or her. One may then enter into a situation that repeats childhood experiences such as living with or marrying an shameful partner, and therefore keeping oneself in externally imposed danger. Or one may keep oneself down through self-abuse, compulsive behaviors, and depression because the powerlessness has become internalized. The first step to overcoming learned powerlessness is to learn to feel authorise to your personal rights. You have the right to live a life free from physical, emotional, sexual, and financial mistreatment. You have the right to be treated with respect, to earn a livable income, to be informed of matters that affect you, and to express yours elf freely, without harming others. to the highest degree importantly, you have the right to ask for what you need, even though you may be turned down, and to fight for what you need and want, even if you are turned down. almost people who have learned powerlessness barely feel entitled to speak, let alone to speak freely. Often professional therapy is necessary to batter the ingrained patterns. Never the less, to overcome learned powerlessness, you must gradually, but persistently lay claim to each and every human right, one after the other. The purpose of the potency approach is to help people overcome feelings powerlessness by acquiring power. Mondros and Wilson (1994) differentiate power from authorisation by joust that this second concept is truely a psychological state that allows one to pursue concrete activities aimed at becoming powerful. The literature on empowerment in organizations focuses on two distinct categories of organizations actors program beneficiaries and staff members. Rapp, Shera, and Kisthardt (1993) define empowerment in individual clients as confidence, control, decision authority, influence, autonomy, and self-trust.According to Shera and rascal (1995), empowerment of employees in organizations can be defined as, a suffice of enhancing self- energy among organisational members through the identification of conditions that foster powerlessness and through their removal by both schematic organizational practices and informal techniques that provide efficacy information. Empowerment in the social services can take government agency within the context of relationships between cookers and clients, within the organizations formal decision-making structure, and within the contact between the organization and institutions or groups in its external environment. It should be noted that empowerment in organizations involves the redistribution of resources such as decision-making authority or goods and services. Therefore, in additio n to producing specific outcomes, empowerment is a governmental process.Staff members may feel they will lose power and authority to make service decisions if clients are treated as equal partners in the decision-making process. Because one of the primary assumptions of empowerment in direct social work practice is to reduce feelings of powerlessness by increasing personal self-perceptions of ones own power, the model focuses on facilitating the acquisition of leadership skills and actual political power among agency clientele. Staff members also acquire power through participation in organizational decision-making and by advocating for improvements in organizational policies and services. The organization gains political power as constituents become empowered to exponent for changes in government policies and campaign for meaningful social change. In conclusion, power, powerlessness, and empowerment all have a different meaning and serve a different purpose but each one has a pow erful meaning in its own way.