Logo

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

10.06.2025 01:40

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

Off the top of my ancient head:

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

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

Have Dakota Johnson and Chris Martin Consciously Uncoupled? - The Cut

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

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

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

Neuroscientists just discovered a fascinating fact about the grooves in your brain - PsyPost

General Introduction to Boundaries from Panahi Counseling:

Obsessing about clients outside of work hours.

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

Which feels physically better for guys: vaginal sex or anal sex?

Serious disappointment when the client cancels a session.

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

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.

Why are we explaining today’s “climate change” as driven by human related “green house” gasses when natural “global warming” pushed sea level up to the “shores” of Topeka with no human contribution or even presence? Is Occam’s Rasor applied?

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