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# 2023-10-30 - Boundaries by Anne Katherine
I found this book in a thrift store. I appreciated the clear
writing! It was published in 1991 and i wish i had read this book in
the early 90's. It could have saved me some trouble.
From the author's web site:
> One of first books ever written on boundaries, Boundaries, Where
> You End and I Begin, is a classic. Designated as one of the top
> ten books on relationships, it's been a steady seller for more than
> 20 years. This is the basic book on boundaries.
If this book were written in the present time, it would probably come
with dozens of trigger warnings. Some of the examples and personal
stories have harsh emotional impact!
I learned a lot from reading this book. For example, the idea that
neglect is a boundary violation too (a distance violation). Also the
distinctions between enmeshment and intimacy, and between
defensiveness and asserting a boundary.
> Violations of distance happen when children don't get enough from
> their parents, when one spouse won't speak to the other, is
> emotionally cold, or is unwilling to discuss important matters, or
> when one friend refuses to work out a disagreement with another.
> Boundary violations can be healed right away if the sufferer tells
> the intruder that a boundary has been violated and the intruder
> immediately apologizes or somehow expresses concern about the
> violation. Note the two parts to this. The one whose limits have
> been breached must make the offense known and the offender must
> respect the limit.
Past friends have skipped straight to cutting me off, without
making the offense known or making a clear request. It is
interesting to speculate about their behavior being defensive and a
distance violation of MY boundaries.
# Chapter 1: The Wall Between
So what is a boundary? A boundary is a limit or edge that defines
you as separate from others.
Our skin marks the limit of our physical selves, but we have another
boundary that extends beyond our skin. We become aware of this when
someone stands too close. It's as if we are surrounded by an
invisible circle, a comfort zone. This zone is fluid. A lover, say,
can stand closer than most friends, and a friend can stand closer
than a stranger.
We have other boundaries as well--emotional, spiritual, sexual, and
relational. You have a limit to what is safe and appropriate. You
have a border that separates you from others. Within this border is
your youness, that which makes you an individual different and
separate from others.
What is an emotional boundary? We have a set of feelings and
reactions that are distinctly ours. We respond to the world uniquely
based on our individual perceptions, our special histories, our
values, goals, and concerns.
When it comes to how others treat us emotionally, we have limits on
what is safe and appropriate.
When you let someone abuse you or hurt you verbally, the other person
is not advanced. Protecting yourself sets a necessary limit for both
of you. That limitation advances the relationship.
We have spiritual boundaries. You are the only one who knows the
right spiritual path for yourself. We can be assisted but not
forced. Our spiritual development comes from our inner selves.
We have sexual boundaries, limits on what is safe and appropriate
sexual behavior from others. We have a choice about who we interact
with sexually and the extent of that interaction.
We have relational boundaries. The roles we play define the limits
of appropriate interaction with others.
Boundaries bring order into our lives. As we learn to strengthen our
boundaries, we gain a clearer sense of ourselves and our relationship
to others. With good boundaries, we can have the wonderful assurance
that comes from knowing we can and will protect ourselves from the
ignorance, meanness, or thoughtlessness of others.
If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you probably had little
help with boundary development. You may have grown up without any
clear sense of your own boundaries. In fact, you may have been
taught to let others run over your boundaries.
If the barrier of your skin is breached by a scratch, you become
vulnerable to infection. If your emotional or relational boundaries
are breached, you also become vulnerable to harm. When these
invisible boundaries are trespassed by the thoughtless or intrusive
actions of others, it is called a boundary violation.
Like any fence, boundaries require maintenance.
What is seen as a healthy boundary in one country or culture may be
misunderstood or feared in another culture.
Boundaries, to some extent then, are influenced by the values of the
culture in which we live. When we interact with other cultures, it's
important to be sensitive to these differences and to remember that
each side may unwittingly cross a boundary not from malice but from
ignorance.
# Chapter 2: Visible and Invisible Boundaries
I set my physical boundaries by choosing who can touch me and how and
where I am touched. I decide how close I'll let people get to me.
Because i have a reverse gear as well as a forward I can back away
from someone who invades my personal zone.
I set my emotional boundaries by choosing who I'll let people treat
me. One way I do this is by setting limits on what people can say to
me.
Setting emotional boundaries includes deciding what relationships
I'll foster and continue and what people I'll back away from because
I can't trust them.
Violations come in two main categories: violations of intrusion and
violations of distance.
Violations of intrusion occur when a physical or emotional boundary
is breached.
Violations of distance occur when intimacy is less than that is
appropriate to the relationship. [neglect]
It may be hard to see, but too much distance is harmful. Children
need safe physical contact in order to define themselves. Nonsexual
cuddling, hugging, holding, and touching are important for a child's
emotional and physical development. Adults also need to be touched.
When we yell, we know we yelled because we hear it (unless our
hearing is impaired). Our ears give us immediate feedback that we've
made a sound. We can then modify the sound to accurately convey what
we mean.
Similarly, we need a reaction, feedback, when we're feeling
something. When the feedback is accurate, our feeling unfolds and
becomes clearer.
An echo bounces your words back to you. A warm response brings your
feelings back to you. You get to know yourself better. This
combination--of effective feedback and knowing yourself
better--creates an emotional boundary. It fills in the circle of who
you are and creates a space outside of you of who you aren't.
We learn about emotional boundaries by the responses we get.
Learning about and connecting with feelings is essential for complete
boundary development.
Our feelings are rich in meaning about the nature of our connections
with others. When we are in contact with that, we can be guided by
our inner selves, we can tell who we are, what is right for us. We
can, therefore, know our emotional boundaries. And by knowing our
emotional boundaries, we can tell when someone has breached them.
Being connected with our inner selves gives us the strength to
protect ourselves from violators.
# Chapter 3: Context
Context, the type of relationship, defines appropriate closeness and
distance in a relationship.
Violations of distance happen when children don't get enough from
their parents, when one spouse won't speak to the other, is
emotionally cold, or is unwilling to discuss important matters, or
when one friend refuses to work out a disagreement with another.
There's a big difference between enmeshment and intimacy. Enmeshment
may feel like intimacy, but it is not. Intimacy comes from knowing
each other very well, accepting shortcomings and differences, and
loving each other anyway. Enmeshment is an attempt to feel and think
as if you were the same person. Since quite a bit of one's
uniqueness is missed this way, neither person can really be known, a
very different experience from intimacy.
One cause of too much distance comes from not talking about important
matters. If intimacy means being known by the other, lack of
intimacy comes from not being known. If partners aren't talking
about problems, feelings, needs, and wants, they'll feel less known,
and distance will grow between them.
When a person neither knows [their] feelings nor has healthy ways to
handle them, [they are] vulnerable to whatever will keep [their]
feelings contained--alcohol, drugs, food, excessive work, stress,
compulsive acquiring, compulsive hobbying.
What's the solution? Getting expert help to learn the skills not
learned as children. Therapists, classes, and anonymous programs
[AKA support groups] all offer ways to discover one's hidden self,
construct ways to get back in contact with feelings. With support,
you can safely feel hard things--without crashing or hurting someone
else--until you're ready to solo.
The truth is that intimacy takes a lot of work and must be
deliberately undertaken.
Physical intimacy can be sexual and nonsexual. Nonsexual physical
intimacy can be nurturing and comforting. Sexual intimacy changes
the dynamic of the relationship. If emotional intimacy and the
ability to communicate clearly about hard things has preceded it,
[sexual intimacy] can enhance the relationship. If sexual intimacy
is not grounded in emotional closeness and effective communication,
it can lead to problems in the relationship.
Intimacy requires that we know our feelings and needs, that we
communicate them, and that we understand how to get our needs met.
We must know how to work out disagreements, how to handle anger, how
to have balance, and be able to respect the different needs,
feelings, thoughts, and reactions of another. With either distancing
or enmeshing parents, our experience is limited when it comes to
learning these skills.
Parents may use their children to get their own needs met. Here are
some ways parents use their children:
1. Expecting the child to take care of the parent.
2. Asking the child to make adult decisions.
3. Enmeshing with the child--either living life vicariously by
becoming too involved with the child's thoughts, interests, and
activities, or making the child into a clone of the parent.
4. Misusing the child in order to feel powerful or to express anger.
Children need a lot. They come into the world with a set of demands.
If a parent is overwhelmed with [their] own unmet needs, the child's
needs are just too much.
# Chapter 4: Your Physical Boundaries
You are the one accountable for your choices. You bear the
consequences of your decisions and your body bears the consequences
of your decisions about it.
The only exception is if you are incapacitated and must receive
medical attention. Beyond this, you have the right to say who
touches you and how.
You do not have to endure any kind of contact you don't want.
The more you stop yourself from being used, the less you broadcast
yourself as a victim. Like a wolf who stalks the weak elk in the
herd, exploiters will pass you over if you seem strong and feisty.
By learning to protect yourself, you lessen the incidences of being
threatened.
# Chapter 5: Your Emotional Boundaries
Emotional boundaries define the self. Assaults to boundaries
threaten the self. One's unique self is composed of a complex of
ideas, feelings, values, wishes, and perspectives that are duplicated
by no other. Emotional boundaries protect this complex.
What strengthens emotional boundaries? The right to say no. The
freedom do say yes. Respect for feelings. Support for our personal
process. Acceptance of differences. Enhancement of our uniqueness.
Permission for expression.
What harms emotional boundaries? Ridicule. Contempt. Derision.
Sarcasm. Mockery. Scorn. Belittling feelings. Stifling
communication. Insistence on conformity. Arbitrariness. The need
to overpower. Heavy judgments. Any kind of abuse. Abandonment.
Threat. Insecurity.
Think of the effect it has to pretend you're different than you
really are. Being someone you're not lets alien behavior and
attitudes enter your boundary and replace your true self. When we do
this a lot, we begin to feel strange to ourselves. We can lose touch
with our true selves and not know what we really want and need.
When you share yourself honestly, when you reveal your own thoughts
and reactions, you define yourself emotionally both to yourself and
to others. When you pretend to take on another's views, when you
conceal your conflicting opinion, you obscure your boundary for
yourself and for others.
If boundary development was severely harmed when you were a child,
therapy may be the most efficient route.
Either we wrestle with these issues endlessly with bosses, friends,
spouses, co-workers, and children, or we get professional help that
shows us how to build boundaries and stay safe as well.
# Chapter 7: Boundary Violations
A boundary violation is committed when someone knowingly or
unknowingly crosses the emotional, physical, spiritual, or sexual
limits of another. Boundary violations may be accidental or
deliberate. They can be committed maliciously, thoughtlessly, or out
of kindness.
Whether a violation is intended or not, whether it is committed out
of ignorance or malice, it is still a violation. It still harms.
Boundary violations can be healed right away if the sufferer tells
the intruder that a boundary has been violated and the intruder
immediately apologizes or somehow expresses concern about the
violation. Note the two parts to this. The one whose limits have
been breached must make the offense known and the offender must
respect the limit.
Certain roles carry rank or power.
A supervisor, boss, owner, military officer, teacher, or coach has
power because [they] can influence the financial future of the
subordinate. The livelihood of the subordinate is in [the other
person's] hands.
Parents, clergy, rabbis, doctors, attorneys, therapists, teachers,
and scout leaders are invested with trust. These positions of
leadership involve caring for, advocating for, or teaching those
within their charge.
Although we, the people they care for, are not technically
subordinate, we entrust these people with authority over life's more
critical aspects, authority that enables them to sanction or
invalidate us. The leadership and trust we invest in them, however,
carries with it a particular responsibility. The development of
ethics is a recognition of this responsibility.
For a person in such a role, essentially that of a guardian, to cross
sexual boundaries is a grave violation: for someone vulnerable and in
need, such action can be devastating.
The person who sought care was used to meet the needs of the
caregiver.
More subtle violations occur when the caregiver initiates interaction
that is only appropriate among peers.
How can you tell if someone is a peer? If [they] know more about you
than you know about [them, then they] are not a peer.
Professional distance between therapist and client gives the client
[their] greatest safety. Friends give and take from each other. A
client is safest if the therapist has no expectation of receiving
from the client. Friends develop obligations. A client has no
obligation to the therapist other than the financial one. A therapy
session is strictly for the purpose of advancing the client's
emotional growth. The focus is on the client. In a friendship, the
focus moves back and forth.
All roles have built-in limits. Respecting these limits creates
order in relationships. Crossing these limits yields confusion and
disorder.
How can you develop your own sense of what's appropriate?
What's your orientation to the person in question? Do you look up,
down, or across? Are you in a giving or receiving role? Is your
role to give or receive support?
If you are looking up to a person... you are not [their] peer. ...you
are not required to parent or counsel [them].
If you are looking down to a person... [they are] not your peer.
[They] should not be counseling you. And you should not be giving
[them] inappropriate information.
If you look across to a person, [they're] your peer. You support
each other. You confide in each other. Giving goes both ways.
If you're doing peer things with someone you look up or down to,
something's wrong. A boundary is being crossed. Talk about it to a
peer, therapist, or someone who is boundary wise.
If you're looking down or up at someone who's a peer, something's
wrong. The relationship has lost its footing and needs help.
Cleaning up role violations is easiest if both people are working on
it, but sometimes you're the only one who understands the problem.
Many of us want health in our relationships, and when we have a
choice we choose open, frank communication. But if the other person
is simply incapable of acting in a healthy way because of an
addiction or personality disorder, we must protect ourselves.
Sometimes we need to leave a job to find a healthier work
environment. A company or agency that doesn't clean up its act
always loses the good people. When employees are healthy, they
leave.
If you are a victim of a boundary violation, present or past, protect
yourself. Take yourself out of the situation in which you are being
violated as soon as possible. Get support from healthy people so you
can leave.
If you attend to your own boundary repair, you'll find yourself in
progressively better situations. Instead of being on the defensive,
you'll actually have the space and safety to develop, to become more
yourself, to have more of the life that's been given to you.
# Chapter 8: Intimacy
A hundred books on marriage will tell you that communication is the
key to a successful relationship. But not just any communication
will do. The kind that makes the difference comes from the inner
person--important, wispy, hard-to-grasp feelings; tough
acknowledgments; needs cloaked in shame--and goes to the other's
inner person--open, non-critical listening that is heart to heart,
not heart to mind.
The advanced type of listening that makes a marriage grow in intimacy
is not something many of us learned as children. It presumes contact
with and acceptance of feelings and a special quality of listening.
For both skills, we need boundaries.
Intimacy comes from being known, and being known requires knowing
yourself, having a self to know, and having enough of a sense of your
own individuality to have something to present to the other.
The most critical ingredient for intimacy between two people is that
there be two people. True intimacy requires two separate individuals.
If most of [a child's] attention is focused on surviving, important
phases of development will be missed.
This has two enormous consequences. The full emergence of self is
harmed. And powerful feelings about the harm and the need for
survival get stored.
Stored feelings control us. They unconsciously influence our values,
decisions, perspectives, and especially our choice of mates. They
determine the types of defenses we'll construct to make up for poor
boundaries.
We reverse the damage done to us as children by reversing this
process--unlocking feelings, meeting basic physical needs, getting
dependency and other developmental needs met, and building
boundaries. The harmed self can then become whole.
A whole person presents a completely different possibility in
relationships than an incomplete person. A whole person can define
needs, express feelings, and set limits. A whole person maintains a
separate identity with boundaries rather than defenses.
A boundary comes from an awareness of one's distinctness from
another. The ability to build one arises from finishing unfinished
childhood agendas, identifying the harm, feeling the suppressed
feelings, and grieving the losses [will] restore wholeness to the
incomplete child living inside us. As this work is done, one's
capacity for intimacy expands.
People commonly handle uncomfortable feelings by shoving them onto
someone else or by getting someone else to take responsibility for
them.
# Chapter 9: Mending Wall
It's never too late to build boundaries for yourself. No matter what
kind of mess your life is in, healthy boundaries will improve it. Do
the following three things and your boundaries can't help but improve:
1. Increase your self-awareness.
2. Identify childhood violations and the offenders, feel about them,
and get care for that damage.
3. Examine the state of your boundaries in your present relationships
and clean them up.
Sound simple? It's simple but not easy. As you delve into one
aspect of boundary building, the other two will be helped. For
example, as you become more aware of yourself, you will very likely
realize more and more ways your boundaries were violated as a child.
As you heal from these violations, internal boundaries will grow and
you'll find yourself creating boundaries in present relationships.
Many people carry on social lives with clients. It's a common
American thing to do.
Crossing advocate or supervisory rolls with peer activities often
leads to this type of boundary confusion. Sooner or later something
happens that demands one type of response form an advocate or
supervisor and another type from a friend or peer.
So what do you do if you live in a small town or on an island? The
number of people available for friendships, clients, and employees is
limited. If you have no choice but to blur boundaries to meet your
social and relational needs, know that sooner or later a boundary
issue will develop. These guidelines can bee defied, but in doing so
you open yourself to consequences that can result in a resentful
employee or in the loss of a person as both a friend and client.
[The author is talking about having a dual relationship. I've had
mixed luck with dual relationships. Sometimes they work out good.
Sometimes they don't. But the same is true of all my relationships,
dual or not.]
Dual relationship
## Exercises To Increase Your Self-Awareness
Journaling Week
* Get a small notebook and keep it with you.
* For one week, research the ways you're different from the people
around you.
* Notice every time your opinion differs from the person you are
with. Jot a brief note in your notebook describing your actual
opinion. Notice every time your values differ from the person you
are with. Make a note of it. Notice when your preference is
different. List your preference.
* At the end of the week, read your notebook.
* Discuss this process with a trusted friend, one who listens well.
Don't discuss this with a friend who tries to make [their] opinion
yours.
Television Rehearsal
* Watch a talk show on television. When you agree with a statement,
say so. When you disagree, tell the television your opinion.
Gesture, raise your voice, let Oprah get an earful of your views on
the matter.
* Discuss this process with a good friend.
Public Assertion
* At a party or event at which you are interacting with an
acquaintance, notice when you disagree with [them].
* Tell [them] you disagree and then state your own view.
* When the interaction is finished, excuse yourself and go to a room
where you can sit down and recover from the stress of the
interaction.
* As soon as possible, talk to a trusted friend about your experience.
Friendly Assertion
* Disagree with a friend. Notice when your view differs and say so.
* It's okay to say how hard it is or to express your feeling about
disagreeing with [them]:
"This is hard for me to say. I see it differently than you do."
"It's scary for me to say this. I disagree with you about that."
"I value your opinion. Mine's different in this case."
* When the interaction is completed, discuss with [them] or another
friend how you felt.
Self Care
* For 24 hours, pay attention to how you react to your needs. If you
are thirsty, do you get yourself something to drink immediately, do
you delay and take care of something else first, or do you ignore
that need? If you are tired, do you rest or push harder? If you
need for someone to listen to you, do you ask for it or do you
squelch your need. If you need affection, do you ask for it? If
you ignore your needs, what do you do to make up for this subtle
abuse? Do you eat, drink, or shop to console yourself for being
neglected?
Pay attention to both your physical and emotional needs. Every
time you meet any need, give yourself a star. Any time you deny or
ignore a need, give yourself a minus.
At the end of the 24-hour period, add up the stars and minuses.
How's your need-meeting quotient?
* For the next 24 hours, deliberately meet every physical need as
soon as possible. If you're tired at work, for example, figure out
a way to give yourself a little bit of a break. Walk in the
garden, close the door and rest your head on your desk, go to the
employee's lounge and stretch out for five minutes.
At the end of the 24 hours, how do you feel about yourself?
What difference did it make for you to respond to your needs?
* Talk this over with a trusted friend.
* For the next 24 hours, meet each emotional need as quickly and as
richly as possible. If you need someone to listen, call a friend
and ask for that. If you need affection, as a good person for a
hug. If you need to be alone, arrange that. If you need to be in
the healing presence of someone who cares a lot about you, arrange
that.
At the end of 24 hours, notice how you feel about yourself.
What difference did it make for you to respond to your emotional
needs?
* Talk this over with a trusted friend or therapist.
* Talk to your friend and your therapist about what it would take to
be able to continue meeting physical and emotional needs day after
day. Repeat steps 2 through 5, extending the time period to a week.
* Talk to your friend and your therapist about the thoughts that
emerge that block you from caring for yourself this way. If you
are in therapy, spend some time attending to these blocks.
Removing them will free you to be good to yourself.
As you get better at responding to your needs, you may notice two
things. One, that responding to needs is in the long run very
efficient. A bit of rest when you first feel tired means you won't
need lots of rest later when you are completely spent. Two, that
meeting needs gives a feeling of strength and wholeness, which
develops boundaries.
## How To Identify Childhood Violations
* List the people who were important to you or who seemed powerful to
you when you were a child. For example, Mom, Dad, Uncle Fred, big
brother Tom, Aunt Winnie.
* List the violations or fuzzy boundaries you received from each
person. Include violations of distance and intrusion and emotional
as well as physical violations.
Remember, neglect of your emotional self is a violation. Include
triangulation, being expected to help with adult problems, and any
way you had to take care of any adult beyond what's appropriate for
a child.
* Take this list to your therapy session, or reserve a few private
hours with a trusted friend. Let yourself feel your anger and
sadness about these violations. Talk about the losses you've
suffered as a result. Allow yourself to be comforted for these
losses.
* After this session, take the rest of the day off. Do something
pleasant and undemanding--a walk, a stroll in a garden, curling up
with herb tea and your favorite music. Rest. You've done very
well.
* Sometimes it's necessary to do this kind of inventory several
times. Sometimes therapy becomes an ongoing inventory of ancient
and potent violations. As we get stronger, we become aware of more
from our pasts. Each time you garner the courage to explore,
speak, feel, and be comforted, your inner self will be strengthened
and internal boundaries will grow.
## How to Clean Up Boundaries
So you've examined your relationships and confusion reigns. You have
peer and advocacy and care receiver relationships mixed up
willy-nilly. You didn't know any better. You're a good person.
1. In each case where roles are mixed, decide which roles is more
valuable to you.
2. Talk to your friend about your discovery and tell [them] what
change you'd like.
3. If [they've] heard of boundaries, [they'll] catch on fairly
quickly. If boundaries are foreign to [them, then they] may need
to read this book. Give [them] some time to catch up and tell you
what [they want].
4. Negotiate your new relationship. You'll both derive the greatest
benefit if you both reveal all your feelings and listen to the
other.
[Also consider the power dynamic. For example, if you are both a
client and a friend, then proposing to drop the client role will
affect the livelihood of your friend.]
Decide what you really want. Say that. It takes honesty and courage
to work out these relational issues.
author: Katherine, Anne
LOC: HM132 .K393
tags: book,non-fiction,self-help
title: Boundaries
# Tags
book
non-fiction
self-help
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