Acting in this way is equally abusive, however nice it feels. There are some therapists, and some therapies, which tend to exploit their clients, emotionally, financially, or by imposing a social 'norm' upon the client's experience. Suspicions of exploitation, like any other conflicts of perception between the two people involved, need to be carefully and thoroughly examined, without any built-in assumption that the therapist is more likely to be 'right' than the client. It is the therapist's willingness to test out her own attitudes and feelings, and on occasion to own up to mistakes and confusions, which can above all make therapy a safe and non-abusive structure. As we have tried to show in the last chapter, by working as therapists we are not setting ourselves up as superior beings.
People often describe the therapy relationship as 'unequal'.
We don't think this is right, we see it more as 'asymmetrical' - the roles of the two people are not the same, and their involvement is of different kinds. But the power of the participants can and must balance. This goal is on its own a radical and subversive one in a society which is constructed out of inequalities of power. This is part of the myth of scarcity, which says that there isn't enough of anything, so we must all fight for our share of the inadequate cake. But patriarchal society cannot allow this reality to be felt, otherwise no one would let their power apparently be taken away, no one would bow down to their 'betters', or work in a boring and useless job, or obey silly rules, or let other people control all the resources and activities of society.