One of the things I return to again and again in my work is the question of power. Not in a dramatic or abstract sense, but in the ordinary, relational ways power shows up between people.

Therapy is a place where power is always present. A client comes seeking help. A therapist is trained, qualified, and positioned as someone who knows something. It would be easy for that imbalance to solidify into something unspoken but influential. The therapist as expert. The client as someone in need of fixing, guidance, or correction.

Person centred therapy asks something quite radical in response to this. It asks the therapist to work without power over the client.

How power shows up before therapy even begins

Many people arrive in therapy already accustomed to deferring to authority. They have learned, often through education systems, healthcare, workplaces, or social services, that being taken seriously requires compliance, clarity, and the right language.

This is especially true for people who have been marginalised. When your life has been shaped by poverty, racism, disability, or exclusion, your choices are often constrained long before you enter a therapy room. You may have been told repeatedly, in subtle and overt ways, that you cannot be trusted to know what is best for you.

It is not surprising, then, that many clients begin therapy by asking for advice. They may want the therapist to tell them what to do, how to think, or how to feel. This is not a failure of insight. It is a learned response to living in systems that reward obedience and punish uncertainty.

Resisting the expert role

In person centred therapy, the therapist does not position themselves as the authority on the client’s life. This does not mean that training, experience, or ethical responsibility are unimportant. It means that these are held in service of the relationship, rather than used to dominate it.

Carl Rogers believed that people have an innate capacity for growth, which he called the actualising tendency. From this perspective, the therapist’s role is not to direct change, but to create the relational conditions in which change can emerge.

Working without power over people often means tolerating uncertainty. It means resisting the urge to give answers, even when doing so might feel reassuring in the moment. It means trusting that clients can find their own meanings, even when those meanings differ from what the therapist might expect or prefer.

Watching agency return

One of the most moving parts of this work, for me, is witnessing the gradual shift that many clients experience. Over time, questions that begin with “What should I do?” can slowly become statements like “I’m starting to notice what feels right for me,” or “I trust myself more than I used to.”

This is not something the therapist gives. It is something that grows when a person is consistently met with respect, empathy, and acceptance. In a culture that so often undermines self trust, this reclaiming of agency can feel quietly powerful.

Why this is political

To work without power over people is not a neutral act. It sits in tension with systems that rely on hierarchy, control, and expertise. It challenges the idea that distress is primarily an individual failure, rather than a meaningful response to lived conditions.

Person centred therapy does not deny the impact of social structures on mental health. Instead, it refuses to locate all responsibility for change within the individual while ignoring the contexts they live in. By honouring the client’s perspective and experience, it restores dignity in places where it has often been eroded.

A different kind of therapeutic relationship

This way of working is not always comfortable. It can feel countercultural, especially in a profession that is increasingly shaped by targets, outcomes, and manualised approaches. But it is a stance I return to because it feels ethically grounded and human.

To work without power over people is to trust that, given the right conditions, people tend towards growth rather than harm. It is to believe that agency is not something to be imposed, but something to be supported.

In a world where many people are spoken for, decided about, or managed, therapy can become one small space where power is shared differently. Not perfectly, and not without complexity, but with care.