Back onto the ideas stemming from Dependency theory. (Please don’t yawn so LOUD!)
So from where does Person A gain this power to control and manipulate Person B? Simply from Person B’s dependence on Person A, who might be providing one of the following:
- Physical strength or protection from physical strength (sometimes their own – ie., “be nice to me or I’ll beat you up”)
- Financial resources or a link to them
- Attractiveness
- The ability to touch deep emotions such as religious ecstacy and the feeling of contributing to something greater than themselves
- Central position in a gossip network (exercises potential control over Person B’s reputation)
- The “approval” of “God” or the ability to raise or lower Person B’s feelings of guilt
- Information and expertise
Person A may be a human, a “leadership” team, an organisation or a faceless system. When he/she/it uses any one of these “resources” above to use other humans for personal gain, this is corrupt power, control, manipulation.
As I said in the last post about this, one can have these resources and use them authoritatively without being guilty of corruption. Our legal system needs to exert some control over our populace for the proverbial “greater good” – although this can of course be abused. Mangement should expect staff to live and work to certain standards or face consequences – but again there are limits to this and authority can warped by personal agendas.
Examples of abuse that stems from corrupt power and control:
- Vince wants Jenny to sleep with him. She wants to save herself for marriage. If she sleeps with him she will feel bad and risk falling pregnant. If she doesn’t, she may end up lonely becuase he threatens to simply go out with someone else. Vince is attractive. He is charismatic. Jenny feels like she’s getting older and time is running out for her to gain the commitment of a man like Vince. No one else seems interested in her, so she begins to wonder “What choice do I really have?”
- The only company who need Jeff’s specialised training and also exists in the eastern suburbs of Jeff’s city (where he lives) has asked Jeff to take a pay cut while working more hours. He is panicky and angry but he gives in and signs the new agreement. “Where else can I go?”
Let’s go over the concept one last time before I close this post. Person B gives something they don’t want to give to Person A simply because Person A controls a “resource” B needs (or is convinced they need). Therefore A controls B.
B typically experiences cycles of emotions that include: resentment, anxiety, deep sadness or despair, followed by a rewriting of the situation in their own mind (e.g. “Person A’s not so bad; they have actually been good for me” or “My kidnapper is now my hero” or “the rape/abuse was/is my own fault” or even “I only need to see it out for one more year and everything will change”) – and then the cycle continues.
Doesn’t sound like a happy healthy life but it goes on all around us in so many ways so often. We may even be Person B in a situation like this right now and be justifiying it … or worse, a Person A.
If you feel a niggling somewhere in your psyche, take some time to listen to it. The truth is often very uncomfortable to face, painful to embrace but it “will make you free”
Where have you seen these forces at work?
I’ll do one more post on this soonand look at some of the ways to break an abusive or addictive cycle based on Dependency Theory…
For our purposes, authority means “A position of leadership that comes from either natural or organisational relationship” (e.g. parent, mentor, manager, Colonel or teacher). “Power” in dependency theory refers to “the ability to make Person B do things they wouldn’t otherwise want to do for the benefit of Person A”.
