We hear and talk a lot about boundaries. We are sure they are important, but do we know why boundaries in therapy are so important for our clients? Here, Jules Shore shares about her personal inspiration and insight into this key element running through our clients’ issues and gives us five reasons why it is important to learn Experiential Therapy Techniques: A Neurobiological Approach to Self-Compassion Therapy.
Jules shares…
Why am I so passionate about boundary work?
Join Juliane Taylor Shore for a FREE 90-minute webinar
Experiential Therapy Techniques: A Neurobiological Approach to Self-Compassion Therapy
During the webinar, you will learn:
A practice to increase self-compassion towards yourself as you do your work so you can both embody and benefit from self-acceptance.
The neurobiological difference between empathy and compassion so you keep use them judiciously in practice.
How to set up experiential practices so clients can discover and experience self-compassion.
1. Boundary Work is the Center of Many of my Client’s Concerns
My clients are my biggest teachers about boundaries, about how to repair them, about how to learn and how to do them differently. The main issues they generally come in with are relationship issues – with themselves, with another person, or with reality, something that’s happening in the here and now.
If you think about those three relationship circles and you make a Venn diagram of them, when doing boundary work you actually hit right in the middle of every single one of those relationship issues. So with all the different clinical work I do with the people who come to see me, boundary work is a central piece of my work with them.
2. Boundaries Improve Our Therapy Clients’ Self-Worth
I think that boundaries are self-worth in action. So when I treat myself well, when I treat myself like I have value, value that is totally equal to you, the likelihood is that I’m going to be treating you as equal and treating me as equal and worthy – so my sense of self-worth jumps higher in response to that action that communicates worth. So what I find is the more I do boundary work with my clients, the more my clients´ self-worth and their lived experience of radically loving themselves improves. And then the more they do that, the easier the boundary work is. Then, the more they do the boundary work, the more they hold themselves and others in vast value. They generally aren’t thinking that’s possible when they come in.
3. Boundary Work in Therapy Leads To Living In Integrity
Another reason I love doing boundary work is integrity. When I execute really good boundaries, I am making sure my actions align with my value systems, with who I really am. So if people want to live in accountability, if people want to live in their integrity, my belief is that boundary work is the way. When they work on their boundaries they create a pause between what they feel and what they do and within that pause they learn to check themselves and live in their bravery as they do the things they really think are right.
4. Client Boundaries are Key in Their Relationships
I think of boundaries in four categories: your body’s physical boundary, your psychological boundary, your containing boundary and executing boundaries with others. It actually takes work in all four categories of boundaries to have a truly intimate and close relationship where you can be, I’m gonna quote Brené Brown on this one, “awkward, brave and kind.” So in order to lean in with curiosity, in order to lean in with vulnerability, even when my partner and I or my child and I are in a stressful space, boundaries on all four different levels are key.
5. Clear Boundaries Are Key to Kindness
If I was to pick a value, kindness is my big one. Clear is kind and so boundaries are the key. When I have clarity with what I want and who I am, I am kind to myself. When I have clarity, even though we may have a disappointing moment between us, when I have clarity with you, I’m trusting you, I am inviting you to join with me in your power and my power together. I am clear with you. I am kind. And when we face whatever it is that the world is throwing at us with clear boundaries, that invites kindness to ourselves and to our communities.
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Stay tuned here for future articles from Jules Shore on Experiential Therapy Techniques, helps your psychology clients have good boundaries, and how to use boundaries to be more fulfilled as a therapist.
Want to better develop your boundaries and improve your therapeutic skills doing boundary work with clients? Consider one of Jules Shore’s online courses for therapists, including Experiential Therapy Techniques: A Neurobiological Approach to Self-Compassion Therapy with Juliane Taylor Shore, LPC, LMFT, SEP
