So, what are your professional boundaries? When we talk about professional boundaries, we are referring to the ethical guidelines and expectations that a professional uses to guide their everyday interactions with the client’s and families that they serve. It is necessary for the clinician to clarify their role at the beginning of the therapeutic relationship so that the boundaries are clear. Why might we want to make this clear from the beginning? Well, our first responsibility is to do no harm to the clients we serve. We should take the time to share with them our role as a clinician. We should share with them how you plan to help them can be very important to the therapeutic relationship. This creates a safe environment for the clients and guides the therapeutic process. It is important for clinicians to build a rapport with the clients they serve and clarify roles at the start of the therapeutic relationship supports a trusting therapeutic relationship. It is also important for the clinician to distinguish for themselves the difference between being friendly and being a friend. Clinicians should be professional at all times and have specified goals that they are working on with consumers. Sometimes it is difficult for clinicians in recovery to separate their own recovery from their professional role as a clinician. There is a distinct difference in facilitating a self-help group and facilitating a psycho-educational lecture or a group therapy session. The professional arena should not be the place that the professional uses to get their own needs met. On-going clinical supervision is one way to ensure that the clinician is providing services when they are at their best, which helps to ensure they do no harm to the consumers they serve. Sometimes licensed clinicians discontinue on-going supervision because their specific licensure board does not require it; however, the most seasoned clinician should participate in supervision even if it is peer supervision, as a means of supporting their own person and professional growth. Clinicians should be familiar with the specific ethical guidelines that implemented by their licensure boards and they should seek assistance if they are unclear about the specifics of guidelines implemented by their licensure boards and they should seek assistance if they are unclear about the specifics of the boards ethical guidelines.

1. Professional Boundaries in Substance Abuse Counseling
Yvonne Ward, LCAS, CCS
www.AbsoluteAdvocacy.org www.BecomeASAP.com

2. •Boundaries are a crucial aspect of any effective client-counselor relationship. They set the structure for the relationship and provide a consistent framework for the counseling process.
•Some boundary lines are clear. Most counselors would acknowledge that it is ethically problematic, for example, to counsel your ex-partner because the pre-existing relationship impairs objectivity and serves to undermine the professional relationship.
Professional Boundaries

3. •While situations such as these are clearly problematic, outside of such elementary confines are numerous situations where the delineation of boundaries is less clear.
•These situations fall outside of the formal code of ethics and lie instead in an ambiguous grey area.
Professional Boundaries

4. •Beneficence: a counselor must accept responsibility for promoting what is good for the client with the expectation that the client will benefit from the counseling sessions.
•Nonmaleficence: “doing no harm”. The counselor must avoid at all times, (even inadvertently) any activities or situations with the client that could cause a conflict of interest.
Professional Boundaries

5. •Autonomy: the counselor’s ethical responsibility to encourage client independent thinking and decision-making, and to deter all forms of client dependency.
•Justice: the counselor’s commitment to provide an equal and fair service to all clients regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, disability and socio-economic status.
Professional Boundaries

6. •Fidelity: being honest with clients and faithfully honoring the counselor's commitment to the client’s progress.
Professional Boundaries

7. •The confusion caused by boundaries is best described as a continuum, ranging from disengagement (rigid, inflexible boundaries/guidelines) to enmeshment (flexibility to the point of diffusement) with a large grey area in between that is notoriously ambiguous and dependent upon the counselor, the situation and the client’s changing needs and circumstances.
Professional Boundaries

8. •To be an effective counselor, one cannot disengage from the client to the extent that the counselor cannot empathize with the client. That is not the purpose of counseling and is counterproductive to the therapeutic relationship.
•However, the counselor does not want to empathize with the client to the extent that they hug the client upon meeting them or rant and rave with their client in a mutual expression of anger. Nor would the counselor pop in to visit at the client’s home on their own way home from the office. This is the behavior of a friend, not a counselor. Hence, boundary violation has occurred.

9. •Ambiguous boundaries often arise in counseling, but strict responsibilities do apply to the counselor in relation to their duty to inform clients of the limitations on client confidentiality. Such information forms a large part of informed consent and informed consent is a fundamental client right.

10. •In order to maintain appropriate boundaries, the relationship should always focus on the client and there should be a clear understanding of the ethics and values inherent in person- centered counseling

11. •Over-identification can be one of the most challenging boundary issues a clinician may face. Most clinicians are naturally empathic with people who have experienced similar thoughts, feelings, or events to themselves. However, merely being aware of this risk, helps clinicians to manage this.

12. •If over-identification were to happen, clinicians should discuss this issue in supervision, and if necessary and in the best interest of the client, refer them to another clinician.
•All clinicians should participate in regular, consistent clinical supervision.
•Your supervisor will be equipped to provide you with guidance, feedback, and suggestions for working with the consumers and families you will serve.
Clinical Supervision

13. Professional Boundaries
•Contact Us
www.AbsoluteAdvocacy.org
www.BecomeASAP.com