 We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is the therapy show behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to the therapy room behind closed doors and this is episode 27. It feels like we've been doing these forever Bob. And in this episode we're going to be looking at the importance of boundaries within the therapeutic relationship. Yeah, yeah, that's a good subject. I'm looking forward to this one. Okay, so do you want me to start some of my thoughts? Yes, as always, lots of wisdom Bob please. Okay, so the way I see this is in many different facets but let's start with boundaries and contracts. Yeah, in other words, boundaries within the therapy relationship are particularly linked to the contract that you have at the beginning of the therapy process. Yeah, so you've got many different types of boundaries. So, you know, like, you know, how much you're going to pay for the service, how long it's going to be, the fact that it stops after one hour and you don't go past an hour. But boundaries really, if we think of it around contracts, is shaping the relationship between the therapist and the client. Yeah. And so on. And I think boundaries are so fundamentally important to provide a structure of the way forward in the therapeutic relationship. Yeah. See, there's lots of different areas, I think that boundaries come under. I don't know whether I'm going off track a bit here. But again, it links into trust. And it's kind of like, I want to say, aligning the sand that we don't go over. Yeah, they provide a structure. Yeah. Yeah. A sense of the form of the relationship was acceptable, not, you know, and what isn't acceptable. So, you know. Because as a therapist, it's about outside the therapy room as well as inside, I think. That's right. Yeah. It's very much about the therapist with the client setting the boundaries, the structure, the formation of the therapy process, and what is acceptable and what isn't accessible. So, you can even say rules, I don't think like the word rules, but we might use the word ethics. Yes. That's where my mind is going when you were talking about boundaries was ethics. That's the word I was looking for, Bob. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's a sense of accountability. Yes. And that it actually means that the client or the therapist don't get exploited. Yeah. Yeah. Because these boundaries have been spelled out and should be spelled out at the beginning of the therapeutic relationship, which is a wise link to contracts. Yeah. And I think that as a therapist is really important, you know, to work ethically within the therapy room. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. So. Did you see that program that was on a while back about people claiming to be able to cure certain things? No. It's really interesting. It's sort of you'll be able to watch it on catch up on our player. It's about unregulated therapists, you know, claiming to cure anxiety in under an hour and charging an astronomical amount of money for it with no qualifications. Yeah. Except I see that as very different from what we're talking about. Okay. I think I know where you're going, which is about ethics. So, if it was a podcast on ethics, then I can see where you're really going. If we've got a podcast on boundaries, I think boundaries is, there's course got ethics there, but it's linked to the contract. So, in other words, you know, therapists should, and many TA therapists do, have a contract which is signed. Yeah. And those boundaries are written down, and if it's not written down one is verbally stated. So, for example, what you brought up, which is that the therapist sees the client in the venue, wherever their office is, for 15 minutes or an hour every week at the same time, and that they, though they might be friendly towards their clients, this is not about being friends to the clients. This is a professional relationship. So, we are heading towards the over ethics. Yes, I can see where you're going with that. And I think boundaries are linked to the contract. Yeah. Yeah. Because then it's written down and it can be referred back to. And I know we spoke earlier on in these podcast episodes about the things that we've got in contracts about, you know, not coming under the influence of drugs or alcohol and, you know, not being physical and all those sort of things. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And they are in my contract and it is signed even though it's digitally signed now because I'm not seeing clients face to face. But yeah. Yeah. So then the question is who's responsibility, responsibility is it to set the boundaries in a therapeutic relationship? And my response to that is it's the therapists. Yes. Yeah. They may do it with the client. However, they set the boundaries and it provides a structure for the clients. It also reduces anxiety for the clients. Yeah. And the therapist, by the way. Yes. Yeah. Both parties know where they start and where they begin. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I kind of, I don't want to say I struggled with that, that I was glad of boundaries and ethics and things was clients attempting to contact me outside of the session. Yeah. So as you said, the first podcast or podcast on contracts, that one of the, I assume, I can't remember that podcast, but I assume one of your boundaries, which probably written into the contract, is that they can't do that. Yeah. Or you might have written down something like, and some therapists do, might have written down something, well, in case of emergency, I don't know what your contract is, but it's a boundary. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think mine says that the only contact outside of the session, to rearrange or cancel the session and telephone calls or whatever can be made, but obviously they need to be booked in. It's a booked in thing as opposed to randomly phoning me up, if that makes sense. Yeah. So yeah. It does keep, you know, myself safe and the client safe. Yeah. So I think these boundaries here are pretty standard. I think that probably the people in these podcasts would understand contracts and boundaries. However, if we move to a more subtle part of boundaries, which I'd quite like to move to, which is, you know, the clients and you will have, I assume, because you've worked quite a long time, have many therapists who actually may not really understand the term boundaries. In other words, their model of boundaries may have been from a dysfunctional system, but the boundaries are set very loosely, vaguely or very strictly. Either way, their concept of boundaries has probably been, or might have been, quite unhealthy. And that, in fact, might have been why they've come to therapy. Yeah. You know, in other words, in relationships with romantic partners or even other types of relationships with friendships or business parties, they are unable to keep boundaries or they see boundaries in a sort of merging capacity rather than what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. Or people who might have the problems in saying no, and just body else's sense of boundaries, and they then end up maybe in a co-dependent relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Which, when, as you were talking then, I automatically went to, you know, somebody that as a people pleasing personality driver that, yeah, it's really easy for in the session for the client to be people pleasing as opposed to, you know, sticking to the rules or things. Yeah. So if we look at some of the problems around boundaries, one of them will be, might be a sense of co-dependency or a lack of what we call interdependency, where both parties are responsible for keeping these boundaries. So it will depend again on the history of your client. Yeah. So they've been in a situation where, let's, let's, let's, let's look at what. They are, they're, you know, they're perhaps been born to a situation where their parents split up when they would say, had a client today at eight. Yeah. So the mother remarries or has a new boyfriend and the mother has one set of boundaries and the new boyfriend has another set of boundaries. So for the new boyfriend, it doesn't really matter what time the person goes to bed, the child goes to bed or the other person they're very strict on what is in this. So the person gets mixed messages around boundaries. Yeah. So when they grow up, they have confusion over boundary setting, for example. Yeah. So I was a therapist, one of the jobs you will be doing is helping the person have a more sense of clarity, confusion and predictability about what, what they want in terms of setting limits and boundaries in a healthy way. It might be something a therapist would have as a contractor look at. Yeah. Yeah. Because again, you know, I know you've said it in the past and, you know, I 100% agree with it. It's about bringing our past into the present and how that will play out in a relationship if, you know, they're unclear about what boundaries are. I've had clients in the past that's parents kind of had no boundaries or very strange boundaries. I can't hear. Sorry, I was saying that I've had clients in the past that either their parents had no boundaries. So there wasn't any rules. It was kind of a free for all. But then they would make up a rule randomly that made no sense. Yeah. So what happens is the client ends up getting confused. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the jobs of the therapist has not talked about enough in terms of boundaries, as far as I'm concerned, is to provide a healthy model around boundaries. Yeah. Would that come under the heading of reparenting? It depends what you call reparenting, doesn't it? You know, it's like, it's a very big word, isn't it? And some people listening to this might think of it in cult terms. So, you know, it's like a continuum. Mentoring, parenting, is that reparenting? It's another podcast, really. But in terms of actually having a model of healthy mentoring, or healthy, you might want to call it parenting, if the earlier history was unhealthy. It's more like spot reparenting for me. Okay. It's not really like a full blown with parenting, is it? No, no. But it's again, like you say, it's modeling healthy boundaries and, you know, how we do that on a daily basis. So when I said reparenting, it's kind of like that we model the boundaries and not let the client push the boundaries. That we need to be quite potent in getting the agreement to the boundary in the first place, and us not being laxie-daisical with them, and modeling that in the therapy room. Yeah. And in transaction analysis language, and forgive me for people listening who don't know TA, but I think those boundaries need to be made bilaterally from an adult to adult place, other than just happening from a parent-child place. But sometimes do we need to buy into that for the therapeutic relationship? What do you mean by that Jackie? Well, if we're looking at reparenting, and you know, if the model of boundaries, say for example, weren't that strong, that we need to be potent enough to stick to that. Yeah, I agree, I'm okay, you're okay, and adult to adult, but if then the client pushes the boundaries, is that, does that not come under the terms of reparenting? I think reparenting is an evocative term, and it would mean what you mean by reparenting. You see, for me, I think these boundaries, contracts, etc., need to come from an adult to adult place, not a parent-child place where the therapist defines the boundaries, and doesn't allow any opportunity for discussion, for example. So, if you make the boundaries in a bilateral adult to adult way, almost before therapy starts, or as you go on in the therapeutic relationship, so there's an adult agreement, whether after that might move to transplants or whatever you like, but at least there's a sense of empowerment and autonomy in the boundary settings, rather than what can be seen as a defined position by the therapist. Yeah, yeah, no, I understand what you mean, but the contract in itself is kind of is that up for discussion? Yeah, so all the way through as far as I'm concerned. Okay. Because otherwise, it's the opposite of empowerment and autonomy, isn't it? In the therapy room, yeah, yeah, I was thinking that, you know, the contract that I've gotten written, I'm not sure whether the things I've got on it would be open for discussion. Well, it depends how you see contracts again. I mean, it'd be good for people to listen to when we talk about, but there's different types of contracts. Yeah. The overall contract at the beginning, yes, but as you go along, there's process agreements. Yeah. Now, in the process agreements and the process contracts as you go along, that is the time, surely, from an adult to adult place that you might negotiate boundaries. Yeah, yeah. Rather than, I think, you might have been, you know, when you talk about re-parenting, which I have my own bias against, you might have re-parenting where there isn't a encouragement on negotiation, empowerment and autonomy. Yeah. I can just remember in supervision early on in my career that, you know, I had this discussion with my supervisor about feeling like I was parenting and, you know, it was said to me that that's okay. It's okay for you to do that and then we model individuation and separation and how that's done appropriately within the therapy setting. Well, different therapists and supervisors have different views on things. Yeah. And I think the word parenting is one that people often have different views on. So, for example, is a teacher parenting, is a mentor, mentor, parenting. So, what I'm trying to say is that I'd rather have an adult to adult discussion about boundaries rather than one that is defined by the parent. Yeah. Now, interesting enough, in some therapeutic and canceling circles, parenting would be seen as not okay, because it, because it could be seen as an abuse of power. If it's discussed from an I'm okay, you're okay, adult to adult position, I think we've got a different process going on. Now, that doesn't mean that transferentially the client might not project onto the therapist, an idolized parent that they never had. Yeah, that doesn't mean that that doesn't happen. I'm sure it does happen a lot. And maybe even that we could argue that that is one of the goals of therapy, by the way. However, it doesn't mean that we don't negotiate from adult to adult frameworks around boundary setting. Yeah. Yeah, because the boundary setting, you know, can be used in that, you know, if you don't like the re parenting, but the modelling of appropriate relationships that the boundaries are used within that in the therapy room. I think I prefer Jackie this term spot you parenting. Yeah. Michelle, where there may be, in that particular instance, a modeling, which resembles a health healthy parenting, but it is not like a overall we parent parenting sequence, where the person clients goes back to different developmental stages and replays parental processes. Yeah. Yeah. I get what you're saying. That's because that's one school of transactional analysis, isn't it? And that's that's not what I was meaning. It's more. Yeah, when a client goes into that vulnerable place and feels unsafe, then I do see that part of my role is to hold them in that safe space as whether you call it a mentor as in a parent figure as in I don't see that as abusing. No, because that's more spot. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, if you do, let's put another way around. Yes, I agree with you in terms of spot re parenting or momentary parenting or healthy modeling. Yes. But if you did that all the time, yeah, that would lead, I believe, or could lead to infantilization. And therefore, the opposite, what I believe therapy is about, which is autonomy and empowerment. Yeah. Yeah. If you did that all the time, Jackie, and came from a parent position all the time in the service of what we might call reparenting, that is one style of therapy. And you could even argue that you will be setting boundaries from a different place than the original parent was access. However, if you do it all the time, I think you have different therapeutic contract. You might be called to reparenting contract from the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. But what you're talking about, I think, is that within the therapeutic process, you may sometimes model a healthy parental experience which they never got. Well, I hope that's what I do. That's what I think you're talking about. What you're not talking about, though, is doing that session after session after session without an agreement. Yeah. No. No. No. And I wouldn't feel comfortable even if there was an agreement to do that ongoing in a therapy situation. Yeah. So we got back to boundaries a moment. So I hear what you're saying that you would do that from a place of what was a deficit, perhaps for the client, and then through the modeling from your parenting process, which you're talking about, they start to integrate more healthy boundaries and start to understand what's acceptable and what's not acceptable and what to negotiate and what not to negotiate and what's safe and what's not safe. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's part of a duty for therapists in a way. It's when the problem is, it's when the therapist steps into the process in a more generalized manner and starts to define reality for the client. Yeah. I think I was getting mixed up with what you were saying. I think I was thinking more of the end result and the modelling of, you know, separating out. If the client does become dependent on the therapist and use the therapist as their only safe space and all those sorts of things to model this, you know, the individuation and separating out in a healthy way that, you know, you're not abandoned. We're not going to leave you. This is not replaying history. We can do it a different way. Yeah. I get that. Yeah. And if we're talking about badges again, one of the most common breaches of boundaries is what I would call or may call a codependent action. In other words, when the therapist's sense of self and the client's sense of self get merged. Yeah. So both parties lose each other. So the boundary between boundary is self identity between the client and the therapist gets lost. The boundaries blurred. So for example, you know, they start perhaps be, you know, friends outside the therapy room. Yeah, which goes back to what I was saying earlier on about, you know, making connections outside of the therapy room and things like that. Yeah. You know, your sound is often going momentarily. Do you know that? In this podcast, you go for a couple of seconds and come back again. And I was wondering if it's because you're not near the microphone or something. Yeah. No, it's not moving. I don't know. Just thought I'd say that for the people listening. Okay. Well, I apologise if that's happening. I have no idea what's going on. Yeah, I'll tell you that. But I'm sure you can catch up with this. So, yeah, so boundaries are very important in terms of self identity between client and therapist. And what can happen often is that therapists get merged somehow with the client. And that's often because the client is coming from a very needy place and projects it onto the therapist. The therapist buys into it somehow, perhaps from a rescuing place, for example. And they end up losing their sense of self, both of them. And you get a codependent relationship. So, for example, instead of stopping at one hour, it goes onto two minutes past the hour. And the next session, it ends up at five minutes past the hour. And then all of a sudden it says 15 minutes past the hour, because the two people have lost their own senses of self identity in that process. One a rescuer and the other one is more, well, in TA terms, you might call it victor, but it's projecting their needy vulnerable self on the therapist. You've been listening to The Therapy Show behind Close Doors podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back next week with another episode. Yeah, and a definite blurring of the boundaries. I can remember in my early days of seeing clients, it was really uncomfortable for me at times to stick to the time, particularly if they, you know, they do the age old thing where they drop a bombshell five minutes before the end of the session to actually leave that and not pick it up necessarily. And I think that comes with experience and having boundaries in place. Yeah, so it's very important that the therapist sets boundaries to minimise exploitation, for example. And you are right that clients, often, especially if you work transferentially, need to have a safe, secure place where they can actually do the deep therapeutic work, which is often needed. And you'll only get that through safe boundaries. Yeah, for both parties, it's for both parties. Yeah. But it is the duty of the therapist to initiate the boundaries and maintain the boundaries, not the client, often because the client has gone to a younger developmental level. Yeah. But it's about us protecting ourselves as well as protecting the client in that situation. Yeah, absolutely. Our own well-being so that we can stop at one hour and go off and enjoy our evening and not stay there an hour and a half and have a partner that's very fed up with you and you've missed your dinner. Yes. For example. That would be horrendous. So, you know, some of these boundaries. And it is not even that, you know, if you're working in, say, for example, Manchester Institute and you, you know, have a 50 minute session and you have 10 minutes where you can catch up on your notes and everything and kind of cut off from that one client and prepare for the next client. You've also got a responsibility to the client that you've got coming up next to stick to the time. So, there's a lot of reasons why the boundaries are important. Yeah, of course. So, I think, again, to repeat, it's the therapist's duty to maintain the boundaries, not the clients. Yeah. And that's because clients often regress and go to a developmental level. And it's very important the therapist sees it that way. It's very interesting stuff. And like you said, on a psychological level, the stuff that's going on in the therapy room, it is, yeah, there's so many different levels. So, for example, the question listeners might want to ask themselves is, how come clients will often, many, many times, push the boundaries with therapists? Now, that doesn't come from an adult place. It usually comes from an TA place, a younger developmental time, where, of course, and you know this yourself, where the client isn't the age they are in the room, three, whatever it is, they might be, I don't know, might be 13, they could be three, they could be five. But that developmental age might be about pushing boundaries to have their own sense of empowerment and own sense of agency, which is very important that developmental level. And if that didn't happen, then what we said earlier on, it is the duty of the therapist, I think, to model that healthy boundary. Yeah. Now, of course, the more disturbed the client is, then the more emphasis, I believe, and the more the therapist needs to be vigilant about the power plays by the disturbed client to push boundaries. Now, we've talked about that, haven't we, in the borderline client? Yeah. Yeah. Or the narcissistic client who believes they're in the centre of the world and their sense of entitlement is, you know, the top, they're the top. So I think regardless of the ups and downs emotionally, or whatever's going on, the therapist needs to be very consistent or keep into those boundaries that have been set. Yeah. Yeah. And I have in the past, you know, if I felt like the boundaries are being challenged or the client is pushing them, in the subsequent session spoke about it because I'm really conscious of not blaming and shaming. You know, if a client's really wanting to prolong that session and I'm saying, you know, this is not happening, it's how that can be perceived by the client as well. So you would do see that's what I'm talking about. I know it's good to hear that you do it. You do process contracts from an adult place. Yeah. Yeah. But I would go back and, you know, have a discussion about how the last session ended, maybe, and bring that up. Yeah. From an adult place? Yes. Yeah. That's what I said. And that's an arm and an autonomy, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. Rather than infantilising. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, I misunderstood what you were saying before when I was talking about reparenting and things like that. But it is sometimes if you are with somebody who is pushing the boundaries that you need to be firm, that those boundaries are there for a reason. It's not because I've decided to put them there. It's because it's to protect me and it's to protect the client. And there's a reason for them. Yeah. In CA terms, that would have come from a healthy controlling parent position. Yeah. Very needed. And with more disturbed clients, very much the emphasis is needed from that position. Yeah. And the therapists that Bowen who cave in on that, not only are ceding seeds of destruction for themselves, but they're not helping a client at all. No. Yeah. And I think as well, you know, in the early days, that was difficult to see sometimes. No. Sowing the seeds for something further down the line, if you didn't stick to the boundaries that we agreed upon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting, Bob. So what we're going to do in the next podcast is the use of the self and self disclosure in the therapeutic relationship, which I guess kind of follows on a little bit from this. It does. And the boundaries and how much do we share and how much do we not? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we will, we will be back next week with episode 28. Good. I look forward to that. Okay. Speak soon. Speak soon. You've been listening to The Therapy Show behind closed doors podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back next week with another episode.