Power-over is power used to control rather than connect.
It maintains hierarchy, suppresses difference, and creates disconnection.

Power-over can be loud and threatening, or quiet and presented as care. Someone may insist they know what is best while making it costly to refuse or offer another perspective. The control has force because something is at stake: access to resources, opportunities, credibility, or belonging. Racism, sexism, class inequality, and other systems of oppression shape who can exercise that control and who bears its consequences.

Different roles and responsibilities do not automatically make a relationship power-over. A teacher or therapist can bring knowledge, make necessary decisions, and remain accountable for their impact. Power-over protects one person's or group's position by restricting others' participation and keeping their experience from changing what happens. Even apparent agreement may reflect the cost of saying otherwise.

Power-over has been part of RCT's effort to understand how domination interferes with growth. In The Movement of Mutuality and Power (1991), Judith V. Jordan described mutuality as affecting another person while remaining open to being affected. Power-over closes that movement: another person's vulnerability becomes an opportunity for control, and their difference becomes something to contain. Jordan connected this pattern with cultural ideals of invulnerability and mastery, showing how the effort to remain untouched can undermine empathy and connection.

Jean Baker Miller made the distinction especially explicit in Telling the Truth About Power (2003). She used power-to for the capacity to make something change without restricting or forcing another person, and power-over for uses of power that involve force or control. She placed structural power at the center: unequal resources and privilege give some groups greater capacity to determine other people's lives. Cultural stories can make these arrangements seem ordinary or deserved, obscuring whose interests they serve.

Miller also examined how these patterns enter therapy. A therapist's presumed expertise can make a client's hurt seem like evidence that something is wrong with the client, while leaving the therapist's contribution unexplored. Good intentions do not prevent this. Therapists may turn toward control when they feel inadequate, exposed, or afraid. Miller located greater responsibility with the more powerful person: acknowledging the impact of one's actions and supporting the other's growth are part of the work that comes with that position.

In the third edition of Relational-Cultural Therapy (2024), Jordan described power-over as a social model that locates safety and effectiveness in keeping others less advantaged. She linked it to the suppression of voices that challenge the dominant account of reality or seek a different distribution of power. This makes disconnection more than an unfortunate side effect. Silencing difference helps preserve the hierarchy itself.

Harriet L. Schwartz brought these ideas into everyday educational relationships in Connected Teaching (2019). Teachers influence grades, recommendations, and future opportunities. When that power becomes domination, fear can narrow students' creativity and willingness to take intellectual risks. Schwartz also showed how educators can acknowledge the limits of their own perspective while continuing to fulfill their responsibilities. Across these accounts, the central concern is how power is used. BCC's definition gathers that concern into a relational question: does this use of power make connection possible, or require others to become smaller so the hierarchy can remain secure?

Choose one everyday setting where you have some influence: perhaps you lead a meeting, teach, supervise, or organize a shared activity. Revisit a moment when someone offered a different view. Notice what happened to their contribution. Did it enter the decision, receive a real explanation, disappear, or become a problem attributed to the person?

Look for what supported your position: control of the agenda, expertise, access to information, or the ability to decide who returns. Notice whether you used that power to engage with the difference or make it harder to express. You can begin this reflection with a trusted peer without asking the other person to reassure you.

If you are the person with less power in the situation you are considering, noticing the pressure may be enough. Seek support elsewhere if that is useful; confronting the person or group is not required. Pay attention to what becomes clearer when the cost of participation has a name.