Power imbalance exercise. Power and authority issues are always present in helping relationships and groups. We must understand clients’ responses to these dynamics. Social workers need to recognize when our beliefs and attitudes are affecting the helping process. Think of a situation or circumstance in which you felt a strong power imbalance between yourself and another person. This person may have had authority over some aspect of your life, which gave him or her some control over your happiness and life satisfaction, as well as over the achievement of your personal goals and desires. The person may have used the authority and power to assist you or provide you with something, or they may have used it to prevent you from achieving something you wanted. Write about the “objective event” but also about the feelings you had at that time about the person, circumstances, and yourself.
