"feeling powerless to" is a correct phrase and can be used in written English.
It is typically used to express a sense of helplessness or lack of control over a situation or outcome. Example: Despite her best efforts, she felt powerless to stop the company from downsizing and laying off her coworkers.
3 Fathers, who are often the main source of comfort and support for their wives, report feeling powerless to help, and often feel isolated from their infant as the health professionals focus on the infant and mother.
She loathes, she says, feeling powerless to help struggling constituents: "I feel really bad that young people are now going through what I went through".
"She was dealing with increasingly frequent cycles of depression that she was feeling powerless to help in a permanent way".
The lack of meaningful action has left a disillusioned electorate wanting change but feeling powerless to make it happen.
How much better than to shuffle along, cursing quietly, feeling powerless to stop not only domestic violence but international violence.
Russians have become so accustomed to feeling powerless to affect their future that they do not even see the point in discussing it.
Yet weather reports seemed like terminal diagnoses and left us feeling powerless, at the mercy of something huge and unforgiving.
It doesn't take a parent to know that there's nothing like feeling powerless and frustrated to bring out a little suboptimal behavior.
Indeed women in the current study reported initially feeling powerless in relation to their symptoms, other people, the mental health system and society.
Participants used distraction to avoid difficult thoughts and feelings and believed this strategy helped "protect themselves from feelings that they feel powerless to handle" [ 32].
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