Developing Healthy Boundaries
Maggie Down
Counsellor & Psychotherapist
The notion of personal boundaries is an unfamiliar concept for many people as they first
embark on a journey of personal growth or recovery from childhood abuse. The need for
‘good boundaries’ has often never occurred to them, receiving mention neither within families
nor schools. In addition, poor role modelling of unhealthy boundaries in childhood by parents
and significant others means that many individuals reach adulthood with underdeveloped,
overdeveloped, or distorted boundaries.
A metaphorical example
If someone stands on your toe, you need first to notice that your toe is being stood upon,
to register that it is an unpleasant experience, and to know that you have the right to
protest so that appropriate action is taken, in this case the offending party moves away
and, ideally, apologises.
If personal boundaries are underdeveloped, the person might even be unaware of
the intrusion, or there might be a self-belief that it is not okay to protest the unpleasant
experience, maybe even blaming the self (perhaps for getting in the way or for being
too sensitive).
On the part of the offender, someone with overdeveloped boundaries may not notice
the effect of their own behaviour (intruding too closely on another’s personal space and
causing pain), or may blame the other (‘your foot should not have got in my way’).
A distorted boundary might say ‘I have the right to stand on anyone’s toe I choose’, or ‘I deserve to suffer’.
What are boundaries?
Personal boundaries are the physical, emotional and mental limits that define you as separate
from another person. Having healthy boundaries means accepting that you are a separate individual
with your own emotions, needs, attitudes and values, and that your husband, wife, child and
others are all separate individuals in their own right with their own emotions, needs,
attitudes and values. They do not have the right to control you, nor do you have the right
to control them. People with healthy boundaries have respect for other people’s feelings
and beliefs, even if they are different from their own. They are able to express a personal
need to another person and accept a ‘no’ in response should the request not be met favorably by the other.
Having healthy boundaries means taking responsibility for all that is ‘me’ and not taking
responsibility for what is ‘not me’. This notion is not always easy to achieve and maintain
in practice, even for someone with good personal boundaries, but it is a vitally important
intention to hold if we want to honour ourselves and to have positive healthy relationships.
Boundaries preserve our integrity. They guard our outer being and our inner world from harm. They enable us to recognise and fulfil our emotional needs. Defences, on the other hand, isolate us from our true selves and from being close to others. People with good boundaries feel more in control of their lives because they realise they have a choice about the behaviour they will or won't tolerate from others. It is safer to be intimate with others when we have healthy boundaries.
- Boundaries help define our sense of self
- Boundaries protect us
- Boundaries put us in charge of our own lives
- Boundaries promote healthy relationships
How do we develop boundaries?
We all need healthy physical, emotional and sexual boundaries. The best place to learn
good boundaries is within families as we grow up. Boundaries are generally least
functional where there has been significant neglect, abuse, or enmeshment in childhood.
Enmeshment refers to losing one’s sense of self within a relationship. For example,
a mother might encourage an overly close relationship with her child to compensate
for her own inner emptiness. Such children will feel compelled to deny who they are
or what they need in order to please the parent.
The absence of healthy boundaries for children within families means that they
will be all the more vulnerable to further boundary violations. For example, a
child who is emotionally neglected at home might be bullied at school, or molested
by a stranger.
As a result of adverse childhood experiences, children can grow up with so few
boundaries that they become stuck in a victim pattern (they are unable to say no),
or they may develop an opposite coping mechanism where they have too many boundaries
and become emotionally ‘walled off’ and isolated in an attempt to ward off further
hurt (they are unable to say yes). Such persons will have a hard time identifying
their own feelings and being close to others. Having overdeveloped boundaries can
be as destructive as having underdeveloped boundaries.
Boundaries are easily undone if we have poor self-esteem or hold a faulty belief
that other people’s needs and feelings are more important than our own. We will
then often not be able to say no to requests that don’t feel right, and we may
ultimately end up exhausted and resentful. Healthy boundaries enable us to know
what is important to us and to say no appropriately. This can be an extremely
difficult set of new behaviours to learn. For many women, for example, being told
repeatedly when young that it is ‘selfish’ to think of personal needs, a conviction
can form that they must always think of and please others. This can also apply to
men. A certain amount of ‘selfishness’ is necessary to having good boundaries.
Learning that there is a place for selfishness in a normal person’s healthy repertoire can be a surprising lesson for many.
It is never too late to develop good boundaries. You need to develop awareness about the nature of the boundary deficiencies or excesses that you have learned in childhood and notice more intently their impact on your present life. You can consciously focus on improving your boundaries once you truly know you have a right to own boundaries. Change can start with just noticing when someone has ‘crossed the line’ and intruded on your boundary. Later you may learn that you can set limits, protest an offence, express a personal need, say no, not feel upset because someone you love is upset, or please yourself without feeling guilty. All of these changes can feel very uncomfortable initially.
Remember too that having good boundaries does not mean blaming others for their inappropriate boundaries but taking responsibility for clearly and consistently asserting your own boundaries. Unless we set clear limits we cannot assume others will respect our boundaries. It is also essential that you learn to make your safety your own responsibility and to take whatever action is necessary to safeguard yourself if you are in an abusive situation.
We can also reflect on what we learned or didn’t learn about boundaries in our childhood and teach our children differently.
© Copyright Maggie Down 2002
Further reading
Anne Katherine "Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin" 1993 Simon & Schuster
For further information contact Maggie Down on 9385 5553
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