Feeling Strong: How Power Issues Affect Our Ability to Direct Our Own Lives – A Psychoanalyst's Exploration of Authentic Strength and Human Nature

by Ethel Spector Person

In Feeling Strong , noted psychoanalyst Ethel S. Person redefines the notion of power. The stigma of evil we associate with the subject of power comes from this one conception of power -- the drive for dominance over other people, or, in its most extreme form, an overriding and often ruthless lust for total command. But this is far too limited a definition. Pointing to a more fulfilling sense of self-empowerment than is being touted in pop-psychology manuals of our time, Feeling Strong shows us that power is really our ability to produce an effect, to make something we want to happen actually take place. Power is a desire and a drive, and it is central in our lives, dictating much of our behavior and consuming much of our interior lives. Drawing from her expertise honed in clinical practice, as well as from examples in literature and true-life vignettes, Person shows how you can achieve authentic power to find something that matters; to feel inner certainty; to find a personality of your own and effectively plot your life story.

Genres: Psychology

432 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

Ethel Person, a Columbia University psychiatrist, did pioneering research on sexuality, visiting sex shops and drag dance clubs to help herself understand what motivates transsexuals and transvestites, and conducting broad-based clinical studies on the role of sexual fantasy in people’s lives.

Dr. Person wrote frequently on love and sexuality for general-interest publications and was the author of four books, the best known of which is By Force of Fantasy: How We Make Our Lives (1995), in which she argued that people shaped their lives by trying consciously or unconsciously to live out their fantasies.

Reviews

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

THis is an intellectual, almost textbook explanation of the sources of our personal power and why we have or or fail to have it. I actually got a lot of insight from it and liked its focus on authentic power. I did find myself skipping or lightly reading some parts, however.