Boudaries in dating
While boundaries are often psychological or emotional, boundaries can also be physical.For example, declining physical contact from a coworker is setting an important boundary, one that’s just as crucial as setting an emotional boundary, i.e., asking that same coworker not to make unreasonable demands on your time or emotions.Healthy boundaries are a crucial component of self-care.That’s because “in work or in our personal relationships, poor boundaries lead to resentment, anger, and burnout” (Nelson, 2016).Another way to think about it is that “Our boundaries might be rigid, loose, somewhere in between, or even nonexistent.A complete lack of boundaries may indicate that we don’t have a strong identity or are enmeshed with someone else” (Cleantis, 2017).
Healthy boundaries can help manage demands on people’s time, not just malicious or thoughtless demands on one’s time or emotions.
In a teacher-student relationship, a teacher might set healthy boundaries by choosing to keep their personal lives separate from their professional lives by not telling their students too much about their private lives (Bernstein-Yamashiro & Noam, 2013).
Teachers can also begin each school year by telling students what they are and are not comfortable with.
Mental health professionals also need to practice self-care and set healthy boundaries with their clients—they are not immune to stress and mental health disorders and might be even more vulnerable to those issues than the general population (Barnett et al. One way that therapists can set clinical boundaries is by not connecting with their clients on social media (and being clear about this rule) so that they do not mix their professional responsibilities with their personal lives.
Of course, professionals are not the only ones who need to practice self-care by setting healthy boundaries.