Main description:

What do you do when you run into a patient in a public place? How do you respond when a patient suddenly hugs you at the end of a session? Do you accept a gift that a patient brings to make up for causing you some inconvenience? Questions like these-which virtually all clinicians face at one time or another-have serious clinical, ethical, and legal implications. This authoritative, practical book uses compelling case vignettes to show how a wide range of boundary questions arise and can be responsibly resolved as part of the process of therapy. Coverage includes role reversal, gifts, self-disclosure, out-of-office encounters, physical contact, and sexual misconduct. Strategies for preventing boundary violations and managing associated legal risks are highlighted.

Contents:

Introduction

I. Foundations

1. Definitions and Dilemmas

2. Therapy and Its Limits

II. Explorations

3. Role, Time, Place

4. Money, Services, Gifts

5. Self-Disclosure

6. Communication and Out-of-Office Contacts

7. Clothing and Physical Contact

8. Sexual Misconduct

III. Implications

9. What Harms Are Caused?

10. Vulnerabilities

11. Understandings and Misunderstandings

12. Liabilities

13. Prevention

Afterword