Clinical Foundations: Boundaries and Multiple Relationships

Boundaries are an important part of the therapeutic relationship. Not only are therapists bound by ethical standards of professional boundaries, our brains tend to use them to determine psychological, emotional, and physical safety. Tom Baier, Desiree Compton, and Rachel McCrickard explore the many facets of boundaries from how to set them to responses if they are crossed.

You will learn to:

• Identify appropriate boundaries with clients and supervisees.

• Define multiple relationships and how to handle these relationships outside of the therapy room.

• Develop skills to set boundaries with clients to ensure a safe space for client’s healing process.

This conversation is one for the books. Boundary setting is such an important topic when talking about the therapeutic relationship. It could really make or break the client’s healing process and recovery if these boundaries are not in place and set in an ethical manner.

We talk about the boundaries that may be hard including multiple relationships. Since she is based in Alaska, Desiree can’t avoid clients all the time! She walks us through how she handles clients outside of the therapy room that is professional and also taking care of herself.

As a member of the ethics board, Tom handled a case with a therapist that wanted to go to the same yoga class as a client. Tom and the board decided against it after they uncovered more information… tune into this course for more scoop!