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

Last Updated: 20.06.2025 00:11

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

General Introduction to Boundaries from Panahi Counseling:

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

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

Is love natural, or is it somehow created?

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.

Serious disappointment when the client cancels a session.

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

Can cheating be a result of not truly loving or caring for someone, or is it sometimes just a spur of the moment decision?

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

Obsessing about clients outside of work hours.

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

Why do I feel like something bad is going to happen to me?

Off the top of my ancient head:

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

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

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