What's the difference between helpless and powerless?

Helpless


Definition:

  • (a.) Destitute of help or strength; unable to help or defend one's self; needing help; feeble; weak; as, a helpless infant.
  • (a.) Beyond help; irremediable.
  • (a.) Bringing no help; unaiding.
  • (a.) Unsupplied; destitute; -- with of.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The two groups had one thing in common: the casualties' mostly deliberate posttraumatic reaction; there were only 3 patients in a state of helplessness.
  • (2) For now, the overriding feeling is helplessness, tinged with shame for the last year of passivity.
  • (3) Five needs were reported by more than 30% of the sample as not being met: 1) being able to talk about fears of the future, illness, or death; 2) being occupied and having things to do; 3) having up-to-date information about HIV; 4) having someone to help them with their feelings of depression, helplessness, anxiety, or anger; and 5) help for the patient's family.
  • (4) A rating of helplessness shown in the past just before onset of a prior depressive episode suggested a similar raised rate compared to those never depressed.
  • (5) It is an excruciating fly-on-the-wall witness to Allison's vainglory, Swales's self-regard for his own leadership qualities and the poor young players' overpromoted helplessness.
  • (6) Fibromyalgia patients reported significantly higher levels of learned helplessness, assessed according to a rheumatology attitudes index (RAI), than patients with all other diseases, and scleroderma patients showed significantly lower RAI scores (P less than 0.05).
  • (7) The results showed that both drug treatments blocked the deficit in the escape learning (helplessness effect).
  • (8) Other contributing factors include the high level of helplessness of human infants, the resulting high attachment needs, and the prolongation of development phases.
  • (9) Results demonstrated that action orientation was associated with self-immunizing cognitions during helplessness training.
  • (10) The average Eritrean is now “a helpless victim”, he says.
  • (11) The results demonstrate that patients classified as low helpless were distinct from those classified as normal.
  • (12) One chronically discomposed self-structure, defining itself as polluted and helpless, trembles with the appalling imagery of historical and imminent community disasters.
  • (13) In statements, prisoners later described their feeling of helplessness, of being cut off from the rest of the world in a place where there was no law and no rules.
  • (14) Your feelings of guilt and helplessness may be difficult to deal with, but you may not be what is needed right now.
  • (15) Limited opportunities for exercising self-control while incarcerated may encourage helplessness.
  • (16) It is this sense of being helpless, of being forgotten, of having the social settlement recast in ways that takes away while offering nothing in return, and, above all, of not being heard that so inflames not just students but huge swaths of the British.
  • (17) Instead of feeling helpless, you feel positive and think ‘Well, I made a difference last weekend, sealing up that draughty room.’ There is a wave of change building and people doing things slowly influences governments and companies too.
  • (18) The validity of the RAI was established in comparisons to the Arthritis Helplessness Index.
  • (19) We investigated the relationship between changes in helplessness and depression to disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
  • (20) Infants which are born naked, blind and helpless elicit retrieving and nest building and are cleaned and cared for by the female.

Powerless


Definition:

  • (a.) Destitute of power, force, or energy; weak; impotent; not able to produce any effect.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Hypnosis might be looked upon as a method by which an unscrupulous person could sustain such a state of powerlessness in a victim.
  • (2) Twenty drug-free patients (12 women and 8 men) meeting DSM-III criteria for major depressive disorder were given the Kobasa Hardiness Questionnaire, which contains subscales measuring feelings of powerlessness, security, and alientation.
  • (3) The Dane was powerless, however, when Sturridge returned the favour and Mané doubled Liverpool’s lead in thrilling fashion.
  • (4) Worst of all they are a sop to those who think censorship is the answer to powerlessness.
  • (5) It was predicted that social anomie could be translated into behavioral (attempted suicide) and attitudinal (normlessness and powerlessness) determinants when viewed with regard to its impact upon the family.
  • (6) Two groups, one institutionalized and the other noninstitutionalized but without formal activities, were described as being disengaged: e.g., withdrawn socially, self-absorbed, as well as powerless, pessimistic, and depressed.
  • (7) And it should not be at the cost of local powerless people.
  • (8) Yet despite this, the mantra is that there is significant waste to cut – a mantra not just coming from policymakers remote from action, but from staff within the NHS who can see it for themselves every day yet feel powerless to do anything.
  • (9) It was hypothesized that incarcerated adolescents would have significantly higher levels of isolation, normlessness, powerlessness, and total alienation than would nonincarcerated adolescents.
  • (10) Stories poured in, full of anger, guilt, powerlessness and loss, ones of encouragement, optimism and advice, and they are still coming.
  • (11) The one-cell mouse embryo bioassay was utilized to test the embryotoxicity of three brands of powerless surgical gloves; Pristine, Ansell, and BioGel.
  • (12) Physical and psychological barriers left them significantly disadvantaged, politically powerless, and without legal recourse in matters of discrimination.
  • (13) The training program, therefore, included both educational and structural solutions for the problems of powerlessness experienced by nurses in the hospital setting.
  • (14) "We would like to propose to the Russian side that before issuing ultimatums to a sovereign and independent state, it turn its attention to the disastrous conditions and complete powerlessness of its own national minorities, including the Ukrainian one," read the statement.
  • (15) Thus, the same tribunal that regularly consigns ordinary, powerless Americans to prison for decades for even trivial offenses yet again acts to protect the most powerful actors from any consequences for serious crimes: that is the US justice system in a nutshell.
  • (16) Attention is drawn to the difficulties for students of fitting into new settings and trying out change, to the detrimental effect on learning of rigid practice routines and to the powerlessness of community practice teachers to exert a major influence on the learning environment.
  • (17) But Cameron was so powerless he could not launch missiles against Syria as he had been planning to do.
  • (18) This might include experiences of abuse, trauma, inequality, powerlessness and so on, but it can also include the immediate reactions of the people around you.
  • (19) And yet I have also seen the sense of powerlessness and frustration that comes when people have to deal with services which are unresponsive or which let them down."
  • (20) The purpose of this study was to describe the frequency and characteristics of the nursing diagnosis, powerlessness, in an acute spinal cord injury (SCI) population.