. It's a bit outdated, originally published in the 1970's, but still has some real gems. Here is one about power in relationships, "The exercise of power over people for the purpose of harming them seems to have two basic sources."
Steiner says the first source is "scarcity" or lack of resources. If there isn't enough of a commodity to go around, a few people will exercise power over the others to acquire the resource for themselves. Steiner posits that this power may not always be physical, but can be psychic. Those in power can actually convince the powerless to give up their fair share by accepting the deceptions used by the powerful to justify the oppression. I think we can all relate to that in the modern world where genocide, racism, religious fundamentalism and sexism is justified to dominate certain resources. But you can also see this in families. If mother only has a limited amount of affection to go around she may favor one child at the expense of the others. She may justify ignoring the other children by convincing them they are undeserving or convincing them the favored child is more deserving.
Steiner then talks about another kind of power which Fanita English calls the "hot potato". This use of power is "done as a defense against accusations of worthlessness from within oneself or from the outside". This negative feeling, or "hot potato" is tossed to someone else. If the tosser of the hot potato "can make another person feel less O.K. than he does, then, relatively speaking, he is O.K.".
I see this a lot in scapegoating families. They are usually a very hypercritical and intolerant lot. Constant criticism and fault-finding are the norm. In order to keep people from seeing their own faults (and we all have them) they join together to heap their collective "sins" upon the scapegoat, magnifying that person's faults (or inventing them outright) and elaborating on them ad nauseum. If they can keep the scapegoat as the target for the family's negative energy, they avoid having it directed at them. You can see this in the recent movie I wrote about, "Pieces of April". All of the family's criticisms and negativity are directed at April, leaving the rest of them unscathed. Their own flaws are quite clear to outsiders, but by magnifying April's they lessen the impact of their own by comparison. It's interesting to note that despite their heaped on criticisms, April seems to be better balanced than her family.