Finding a Language of Shared Power: Reply to Donna Orange and David Wallin

Abstract

In this reply to discussions by Donna M. Orange and David Wallin, I address both of their major concerns about my nine-year analysis with “Linda” by introducing a new organizing principle: The experience of power in our relationship. I argue that given Linda’s felt lack of personal power or agency, and the controlling, negating ways her mother had exercised power throughout her childhood and adolescence, Linda was extremely vigilant regarding the ways I used my power, and predisposed to “resisting” attachment and dependency in order to protect herself from the potentially controlling and exploitive influence of the powerful other. Given these sensitivities, much of the work in the early years of the analysis involved my trying to find a “language” of non-controlling, shared power to navigate between the shoals of retraumatizing control and facilitating therapeutic influence.