What Causes Powerlessness?

What Causes Powerlessness? What causes powerlessness? Powerlessness derives from a lack of decision-making power, the inability to enact choices and exposure to the disrespectful treatment that results from occupying a marginal status (Young 1990). What causes powerlessness feeling? Sometimes, people feel powerless and helpless because they’ve been regularly invalidated or treated as incompetent—and “it can