It has been argued that traditional psychiatric labels, hospitalization, anti-psychotic medication, and associated assistance programs tend to reinforce and perpetuate a sense of helplessness and dependency among mental patients. To investigate feelings of power and dependency of 15 neuropsychiatric patients in a sheltered workshop, self-evaluations of dependency were assessed in relation to a real-life role and power feelings were assessed in relation to another role. Although the results indicated that dependency and power feelings were independent of each other, the data revealed that dependency feelings positively predicted the number of mental hospital admissions and that feelings of power in the workshop negatively predicted work performance. The findings provide direct evidence that dependency and power can be role-specific. (Author/JAC)