Boundaries and Boundary Violations

A personal boundary is a fundamental component of selfhood; it refers to the ability to define one's self as an independent individual deserving of fair, respectful, nonexploitive treatment that is informed by widely accepted standards of legal and human rights. Healthy selfhood brings with it the capacity to have well-defined demarcation points whether the issue being engaged is physical, sexual, financial, or property related or has to do with privacy and confidentiality. This entry discusses the nature of personal boundaries with particular attention to the therapeutic relationship, beginning with the clinical profile of individuals who have experienced trauma regarding boundary issues. The next section outlines the historical evolution of the concept of boundaries within the discipline of classical psychoanalysis, including the complex and fraught circumstances surrounding its development. The entry concludes with a brief review of the current understanding of boundary issues in the therapeutic relationship.

Healthy selfhood and the related capacity for resilience are associated with upbringings in which there are secure attachments and well-modeled boundaries, leading in turn to secure introjects, positive self-esteem, and a capacity for self-activation. Many individuals are brought up, however, in essentially boundaryless abusive environments, and these individuals frequently manifest (a) affective instability (with associated self-harming, self-soothing, and suicidal behaviors); (b) dissociation (with amnesias, derealization, depersonalization, identity diffusion, and the formation of alternative identity states); and (c) somatization (an enduring negative self-perception associated with shame and self-hate); while, at the same time, exhibit (d) a strong attachment to an ambivalently idealized perpetrator. Such individuals are prone to be revictimized, and on occasion to victimize others (including at times, therapists). Many find it difficult to trust and are prone to believe that sooner or later everyone will turn on them or exploit them. For many, in their family of [Page 56]origin the principal currency of relatedness was sex, and they have had no experience of any enduring nonsexual, nonexploitive relationship. For some, the adaptation to their abuse is to have become highly sexualized and seductive; for others it has become an extreme avoidance of sexuality. Lacking the ability to effectively self-soothe, many are very susceptible to reenact elements of their abuse. Feelings of hopelessness, lack of a future, and despair are common. Conditioned by a past in which the display of emotions made things worse, many have largely shutdown their affect response, while others are unable to effectively moderate their anger and distress. The manipulation of fear and shame by their abusers is a key component of ensuring their silence about their abuse, while the manifestations of their trauma-based adaptation is in turn used to discredit them as valid and reliable witnesses by their abusers should they attempt to report their trauma.

The sorts of chronically traumatized individuals who have endured childhoods characterized by disorganized and insecure attachment and associated physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and neglect find a home in the construct of Disorders of Extreme Stress not Otherwise Specified (DESNOS) or simultaneously meet diagnostic criteria for a range of trauma-spectrum disorders such as borderline personality disorder, a dissociative disorder (e.g., dissociative disorder not otherwise specified or dissociative identity disorder), somatization disorder, or posttraumatic stress disorder. Most at times meet diagnostic criteria for major depression, and many attract diagnoses associated with drug and alcohol use. Many have disordered eating and sexual functioning and are prone to conversion symptoms.

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