Boundaries, Psychic Structure, and Time

I will start with a few very general remarks about boundaries: they are often agreed, not necessarily physical, flexible not fixed, in short negotiable; symbolic. They are distinct from barriers, which are impermeable and to do with the psychology of exclusion: envy and jealousy; power and dominance; ideals; intrusiveness and defensiveness; splitting. Boundaries are about the psychology of inclusion and communications: meaning and concern; dependence and ambivalence, which maintain them as boundaries and not barriers.

There are many ways of approaching the topic of boundaries: most commonly they are associated with establishing and maintaining a setting within which analysis can take place. This usually means holding the arrangements firmly, but there are wider issues of flexibility in boundary issues, and the maintenance of the setting also includes dealing with intense emotional states that might threaten it. My main point is that in this flexibility the patient experiences the analyst as a thinking deciding being, a mind in process, rather than there being fixed rules.

Goodheart describes problems with the setting that we would all recognize. He says:

Common examples of ‘leaks’ or ‘breaches’ are: frequent and random vacations, missed or overstayed sessions, occasional or regular visits by the patient's spouse or other family member, simultaneous couple therapy or group therapy with the therapist, social or professional contact outside of the therapy, sharing of personal or reading materials, including gifts to one or the other, personal revelations by the therapist, and occasional or even frequent physical contact such as hugging, hand holding or even massage or ‘body work’. These behaviours develop out of the most earnest and caring intentions, often to ‘enhance the sense of personal connection’ or ‘the real relationship’, ‘to deal with some reality issues’, or ‘to speak to the patient's feeling (or thinking or sensation) function', or to get ‘in touch with the bod