Power Abused, Power Healed

Judith Barr
Mysteries of Life (2007)
ISBN 1886264244
Reviewed by Tyler R. Tichelaar for Reader Views (6/07)


In “Power Abused, Power Healed,” Judith Barr, psychotherapist and licensed spiritual counselor, uses Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to explore the abuse of power, and especially how an abuse of power in childhood can affect us in adulthood.

Barr uses “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to create multiple examples of how power is abused. Each chapter of “Power Abused, Power Healed” is a variation of Andersen’s story, where a child announces the emperor is wearing no clothes. The reactions are different in each version, including parents telling the child to shut up, parents refusing to discuss with the child why he must lie and pretend the emperor has clothes, or parents who threaten the child with punishment if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut. In each of these situations, Barr extrapolates a type of abuse. She goes on to tell the story of that child as an adult, who has forgotten about the emperor, only to come across another instance of power abused in adulthood, have a reawakening of the experience with the emperor, and heal inside.

What I thought was most effective about “Power Abused, Power Healed” was the depiction of how people react to situations based on their childhood traumas. I have read elsewhere that 80% of our reaction to something is based upon our reaction to a past event we have not yet worked out; Barr has used extensive examples of how such childhood experiences come back to haunt us when we experience similar abuses of power as adults. In most of Barr’s stories, once the person was able to remember the abuse by adults when he or she tried to expose the emperor’s nakedness, the person is able to heal from past pain and resolve the similar example of power abuse in the present. In a few stories, however, I felt Barr could have concentrated more on the current example of power abuse. While it is important for a person to work through childhood trauma, I didn’t feel the current situations, in a few cases, were completely resolved.

As I was reading the book, I kept thinking of Robert Bly’s “Iron John” which similarly uses a fairytale--the Brothers Grimm’s “Iron John”--to discuss the journey into manhood. “Iron John,” however, is a fairly lengthy and complicated story, so Bly broke it into pieces, using one scene at a time to discuss the stages of growth. Barr tells the entire fairytale and then provides variations on it. In “Power Abused, Power Healed,” I felt the fairytale frame actually limited the book to some degree. Barr also focused a lot of her examples on abuse within the fields of medical health—therapists, masseuses, and motivational speakers. These examples stem from what Barr is most familiar with, but I wished there had been more examples of abuse at the hands of those in business, politics, and religion. The book concentrated greatly on individual healing, the beginning step to greater healing for the planet, but I think more could have been said about how the lessons in the book can be used in a variety of fields to create greater social changes. The book did conclude with a prayer to the world, but I would have appreciated something more practical and substantial.

I would not recommend “Power Abused, Power Healed” to the general reader, or to someone looking for a self-help book. However, I do think people in human services fields will find the book helpful in gaining a clearer understanding of the fine lines between helping someone and abusing power—often unconsciously. Therapists especially may find the book useful in gaining insights into patients.

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