SELF-EMPOWERMENT: HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR JOB
Barbara Bertagni

In our society "development" became one of the keywords: development at all costs, continuous growth, economic growth, professional development, purchasing power growth. In particular, concerning the most prevalent managers' representations, the main keywords are action, pleasure, success, wellness and self-control. It would, though, be suitable to add a couple of words that are a little less "noble": anxiety containment effort and annulment of any space for questions, as everyday life searches for answers towards prompt needs and ponders about the meaning of questions that might bring about stagger and anguish.
Inside this logic, self-empowerment frequently requires that a consultant act inside the same logic, proposing actions and answering requests. Too often, the acting logic follows the same "development at all cost" logic, spreading in almost every sector of our society. When the adviser agrees to this request without opening a space to analyze the question, but simply working on the given target in order to supply a comforting answer, he acts inside the same weird and directive logic leading to the prevalence of the role describing the person.
Working through an effective empowerment perspective means working together with the person in the role: improving one’s self-awareness, promoting a reflection on targets and values, ensuring an elaboration space for emotions and experiences. We must help a person to focus on himself, rediscovering and bringing to light his values; leaving him to gain a better awareness over his role inside the negative and positive events of his life; revaluating the priorities; planning the needed steps to reach his own objectives; pondering over his experience, emotion and conduct in order to revise his own behavioral modalities; finding space through comparison, in order to comprehend the behavioral schemes within which he is used to working.