My personal philosophy of therapy is to address root causes.

Rudy comes into my office, sits down and after the formal paperwork, tells me, "I am having an affair. My wife asked me to leave the house and I am now living with a friend."

"Now some people might say to you, 'Rudy, you need to get rid of the affair partner before we can work together.' I don't work this way because I believe that the affair is the symptom of the problem, not the problem," I respond.

Rudy relaxes and nods his head.

I continue, "I am way more interested in finding out what motivated you to think that having an affair was a viable solution to your problem."

Rudy's shoulders begin to relax some more.

"This is how I work, Rudy. I focus on finding out what was going on in your life and in your marriage. In the next few weeks, I want you and me to explore what was happening in your life that you were tempted to explore having an affair as a solution. How does that sound?"

"That sounds great, Ron. I am ready to work. My wife says that I have to get rid of her before anything can happen."

"Well, that is what we used to think, Rudy. Many counselors used to pick up the phone and ask the client for the phone number of the affair partner and call her or him as the case may be and hand the receiver over to the client and tell the client to tell the affair partner that the relationship was over. Many therapists said they wouldn't work with a person having an affair until they got rid of the affair partner. I don't work that way."

(Pause) "If the affair is a symptom of a problem, then, as we work on the problem, the affair will not be necessary. It will take care of itself."

Rudy looks down for a few moments, then, looks up and says, "I think I can work with you."

Postscript: Rudy worked with me for about 2 months. We explored the roots of his problem and he moved back home with his wife. I never did meet his wife or do marital therapy.

(c) 2010 Ronald Friesen

As you can tell by the date of the last blog, I have not worked on this blog for about 6 months.

Recently, it has attracted more traffic. This makes me think there are issues out there that people want to see addressed.

As a fulltime counselor - I get alot of insights into human behavior. I would like to share more of these - at the same time, I am very interested in hearing from people who may have specific issues they would like to see addressed.

If you have a topic you would like me to try and address, please drop me a line - if you wish it to be anonymous please us the pm feature.

ron

Sometimes our boundaries fail us. They are broken either by ourselves or by others. How do we repair the broken wall?

First, we need to forgive ourselves. If we continue to berate ourselves after we have allowed a violation of our boundary, we weaken our ability to put the fence back up. Self-doubt is a demoralizing reaction. Admit the mistake. A mistake is not the end of game; it is an opportunity to learn how to win at life. We may need to find a strong friend to support us in our recovery. We cannot win alone.

Second, we need to again declare our boundary to ourselves and to others. We may have slipped, we may have let down our defenses, however, we are not weak. We will not be taken advantage of in the future.

Third, we may need to change our playgrounds and our playmates. If we continue to find ourselves in situations that challenge our boundaries, we need to find new places and new relationships. Sometimes these decisions will anger othes. I know people who have found themselves withdrawing from family activities because their family members refuse to respect their boundaries. These are difficult decisions; they are necessary for our self-respect and self-preservation.

Any thoughts?

In my last post, I talked about the importance of boundaries in developing deeper levels of intimacy.

Now I want to turn to the difficult question of boundary maintenance.

In my last blog I reminded us that just as 'Good fences make good neighbors" so "Good boundaries make for good relationships".

Just as it is easier to maintain a fence in the country than to rebuild a fence; so it easier to maintain a boundary in a relationship than a rebuild a boundary.

How do we maintain a boundary in our relationships?

1. We must first decide what our boundary is. I grew up in a family were cursing was not practiced by anyone. My mother was very strict about maintaining this boundary. In her book saying, "For Heaven's Sake" was cursing. Equally father was controlled in his use of language. One day my father received a phone call from a fellow farmer who was quite upset about something. He was cursing so loudly I could hear him across the room. My father politely and firmly said to the man, "Call me when you can talk politely and respectfully." Then my father hung up the phone. Why did my father's words have the moral force they did? His words carried power and effect because the caller knew that my father would never have used those words in the presence of any person or animal. The question this is this: what are your boundaries? You and I cannot enforce a boundary we are not willing to practice ourselves. Want your children to knock when they come into your bedroom? Knock on their bedroom door when you enter. Want your partner to let you know his or her plans for the day? Tell your partner what your plans are.

2. Having decided what our boundaries are, we declare them to others by word and action. We practice what we expect others to do. Furthermore, we tell people what our boundary is. A few years ago I was the spiritual advisor for a 12 step program for single mothers who wanted to practice abstinence and sexual purity until they found a life mate. One of the teachings of the program was to dress modestly on a date. The point was this: men will treat you according to the way you dress. If you dress seductively, don't be surprised if the date thinks he is going to get sexual favors at the end of the date. You can't beat the guy off with your 'No' if your dress shouts ' Yes'. The same principle applies to all areas of our lives. If you expect truth for others, live truthfully. If you expect respect from others, live respectfully of yourself and others. If you expect fairness, treat people fairly. We do reap what we sow.

3. Having practiced our boundary and declared our boundary, we must be willing to confess our failings and to seek reinforcement of our boundary. One of the strengths of the 12 step tradition is to admit that sometimes we are powerless over parts of our lives. Failure is not final! Failure is often the backdoor of success. Just because the boundary was violated it doesn't mean that we have become horrible, vile or ugly person. We can reinforce our boundary by making a decision and a declaration to practice our boundary.

Your thoughts?

(c) 2008 Ronald Friesen

Several commentators on this string of blogs on intimacy have observed that boundaries are an issue in intimacy.

Beginning with my definition of intimacy which talks about peering into the interior life of another and the converse, allowing looking into our interior life, it quickly becomes evident that we wouldn't want everyone to look deep into our inner being. While this oberservation seems to be common sense to most of us, many people struggle with setting boundaries around their inner selves.

Just like the saying, "Good fences make good neighbors" applies to our physical world, I would say that, "Good boundaries make for good relationships" applies to our emotional world.

What is a boundary? A boundary is an internal system of regulation by which we expose our inner being to another. The key idea here is 'regulation'. Obviously, disregulation is the opposite of regulation. When we regulate access to our inner self, we are practicing boundary maintenance. Maintaining healthy boundaries is the key to maintaining a healthy emotional life.

Why are boundaries important?

1. Boundaries are important because they secure our emotional world. Not everyone should have access to our deepest feelings about life and its circumstances as we experience it. Some people are so hungry for intimacy that they feel they need to unburden their heart to every stranger who comes along. This form of uncensured self-disclosure leaves us vulnerable to manipulation, abuse and hurt. (I will write about how to rebuild boundaries in my next blog.)

2.Boundaries are important because they help us from overwhelming others. We all know people who upon meeting us for the first time immediately share their deepest feelings about almost every topic without any self-censure. We often know this experience because we feel flooded by an overwhelming amount of information and emotion. One of the quickest ways to drive people away is to break the dam and let out all of our feelings. We need to learn to space and dose. We need to learn how to read people's responses and learn to let out our feelings in bite-size pieces.

3. Boundaries are important because they show self-respect. People are quickly aware of how much self-respect we have by how we open ourselves to them. I meet people who complain, "No one respects me." After some exploration, it becomes evident that these same people struggle with self-respect: they reveal themselves with no regard to how they really feel about themselves. (I will talk about rebuilding boundaries in the next blog.)

4. Boundaries are important because they monitor access to our inner life. This seems almost too obvious. Think about this for a moment. When we are inviting someone to a deeper level of intimacy, we don't want them just rushing in where angels fear to tread. We want to let people into our lives in a slow, gradual manner. Having some boundaries means that we will take charge about what we show others about our hearts.

I hope this is helpful.

(c) 2008 Ronald Friesen