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What are some signs that a therapist may have poor boundaries with their clients?

14.06.2025 00:57

What are some signs that a therapist may have poor boundaries with their clients?

Obsessing about clients outside of work hours.

General Introduction to Boundaries from Panahi Counseling:

Failing to mention the client in supervision/consultation, out of fear the supervisor/consultant will advise return to ordinary healthy boundaries.

Why do some young mothers trick a guy into believing that they're pregnant and it's their child when years later they find out that it's not even theirs should he still pay child support or not?

Session-expressed curiosities about client details not relevant to the therapy.

These items can happen fleetingly, briefly, in any therapy, but if they’re frequent, it’s definitely time for the therapist to get some good, solid supervision/consultation.

Sense of competition with persons who are important in the client’s life.

How do you weigh in on the Vance-couch conversation?

Struggling with fantasies of deeper connections with clients, whether sexual or parental or other intense or intimate relationships beyond psychotherapy.

Off the top of my ancient head:

Disclosing feelings, fantasies, and experiences to the client in ways not related to the work the client is engaged in.

Would you join a gym or workout at home and why?

Frequent phoning or texting of clients to “check up on them and make sure they’re OK.”

Routinely going over the time limit with certain patients, compromising the time for the next client.

Eager anticipation (or anxious anticipation) of the next session in ways that distract.

I want to touch my sister’s boobs. What do I say?

Serious disappointment when the client cancels a session.