Developing Healthy Boundaries

Counselling On Stirling - Counselling And Psychotherapy, Gestalt Therapy, Hakomi Psychotherapy The notion of personal boundaries is an unfamiliar concept for many people as they first embark on a journey of personal growth or recovery from childhood abuse. The need for 'good boundaries' has often never occurred to them, receiving mention neither within families nor schools. In addition, poor role modelling of unhealthy boundaries in childhood by parents and significant others means that many individuals reach adulthood with underdeveloped, overdeveloped, or distorted boundaries.

A metaphorical example

If someone stands on your toe, you need first to notice that your toe is being stood upon, to register that it is an unpleasant experience, and to know that you have the right to protest so that appropriate action is taken, in this case the offending party moves away and, ideally, apologises.

If personal boundaries are underdeveloped, the person might even be unaware of the intrusion, or there might be a self-belief that it is not okay to protest the unpleasant experience, maybe even blaming the self (perhaps for getting in the way or for being too sensitive).

On the part of the offender, someone with overdeveloped boundaries may not notice the effect of their own behaviour (intruding too closely on another's personal space and causing pain), or may blame the other ('your foot should not have got in my way').

A distorted boundary might say 'I have the right to stand on anyone's toe I choose', or 'I deserve to suffer'.

What are boundaries?

Personal boundaries are the physical, emotional and mental limits that define you as separate from another person. Having healthy boundaries means accepting that you are a separate individual with your own emotions, needs, attitudes and values, and that your husband, wife, child and others are all separate individuals in their own right with their own emotions, needs, attitudes and values. They do not have the right to control you, nor do you have the right to control them. People with healthy boundaries have respect for other people's feelings and beliefs, even if they are different from their own. They are able to express a personal need to another person and accept a 'no' in response should the request not be met favorably by the other.

Having healthy boundaries means taking responsibility for all that is 'me' and not taking responsibility for what is 'not me'. This notion is not always easy to achieve and maintain in practice, even for someone with good personal boundaries, but it is a vitally important intention to hold if we want to honour ourselves and to have positive healthy relationships.

Boundaries preserve our integrity. They guard our outer being and our inner world from harm. They enable us to recognise and fulfil our emotional needs. Defences, on the other hand, isolate us from our true selves and from being close to others. People with good boundaries feel more in control of their lives because they realise they have a choice about the behaviour they will or won't tolerate from others. It is safer to be intimate with others when we have healthy boundaries.

Boundaries help define our sense of self
Boundaries protect us
Boundaries put us in charge of our own lives
Boundaries promote healthy relationships

How do we develop boundaries?

We all need healthy physical, emotional and sexual boundaries. The best place to learn good boundaries is within families as we grow up. Boundaries are generally least functional where there has been significant neglect, abuse, or enmeshment in childhood. Enmeshment refers to losing one's sense of self within a relationship. For example, a mother might encourage an overly close relationship with her child to compensate for her own inner emptiness. Such children will feel compelled to deny who they are or what they need in order to please the parent.

The absence of healthy boundaries for children within families means that they will be all the more vulnerable to further boundary violations. For example, a child who is emotionally neglected at home might be bullied at school, or molested by a stranger.

As a result of adverse childhood experiences, children can grow up with so few boundaries that they become stuck in a victim pattern (they are unable to say no), or they may develop an opposite coping mechanism where they have too many boundaries and become emotionally 'walled off' and isolated in an attempt to ward off further hurt (they are unable to say yes). Such persons will have a hard time identifying their own feelings and being close to others. Having overdeveloped boundaries can be as destructive as having underdeveloped boundaries.

Boundaries are easily undone if we have poor self-esteem or hold a faulty belief that other people's needs and feelings are more important than our own. We will then often not be able to say no to requests that don't feel right, and we may ultimately end up exhausted and resentful. Healthy boundaries enable us to know what is important to us and to say no appropriately. This can be an extremely difficult set of new behaviours to learn. For many women, for example, being told repeatedly when young that it is 'selfish' to think of personal needs, a conviction can form that they must always think of and please others. This can also apply to men. A certain amount of 'selfishness' is necessary to having good boundaries. Learning that there is a place for selfishness in a normal person's healthy repertoire can be a surprising lesson for many.

It is never too late to develop good boundaries. You need to develop awareness about the nature of the boundary deficiencies or excesses that you have learned in childhood and notice more intently their impact on your present life. You can consciously focus on improving your boundaries once you truly know you have a right to own boundaries. Change can start with just noticing when someone has 'crossed the line' and intruded on your boundary. Later you may learn that you can set limits, protest an offence, express a personal need, say no, not feel upset because someone you love is upset, or please yourself without feeling guilty. All of these changes can feel very uncomfortable initially.

Remember too that having good boundaries does not mean blaming others for their inappropriate boundaries but taking responsibility for clearly and consistently asserting your own boundaries. Unless we set clear limits we cannot assume others will respect our boundaries. It is also essential that you learn to make your safety your own responsibility and to take whatever action is necessary to safeguard yourself if you are in an abusive situation.

We can also reflect on what we learned or didn't learn about boundaries in our childhood and teach our children differently.

Maggie Down
Psychotherapist and Counsellor