Tales of a Boundary Ninja

Hi again Novicum,
Excellent question and one that I asked BN myself. 🙂 He truly provides 24/7 contact although the latest I have ever called was 10:30 at night. During one phone call early on I actually asked him how late it was ok to call and he kind of laughed and said if I wanted him to be useful up ’til 11 at night. But then he went on to add, very seriously, if its 2 AM and its an emergency, don’t hesitate to call. There are very few circumstances under which I could believe I would do that. I tend to try and call during his office hours if I can, but I have contacted him both on weekends and during his vacations by email or phone. I expressed my concern about being too much a number of times, but BN has been very clear with me that he is comfortable setting his boundaries. Part of that is that I do not call him directly, I call his answering service, then they page him and he returns the phone call when he is able. So he is in control of when he actually talks to me. He has also made it clear that if the frequency of calls rose to what he considered a problematic level, then he would address it in session. Not that I would be in trouble or it would get me sent away, but we would need to figure out why it wasn’t working since he would see escalating contact as a symptom of an unaddressed problem. He has been clear with me that he feels I respect his boundaries. I am not limited by topic, but I do tend to avoid doing too much processing on the phone, although it does happen. My shortest phone call with him was 45 secs and amounted to “you still there?” My longest phone call (which was an anomoly that happened only once) was 20 minutes. I was having a difficult crisis and he could not fit me into his schedule, so he called me at the end of the day on a Friday and talked to me on the phone. Most of my “longer” calls run from five to 10 minutes. Most of those have been times I have been triggered and needed help regulating my emotions.

But part of why it works is that he IS comfortable setting boundaries. We do not chit-chat or talk about non-essential stuff on the phone. He monitors me during the call and when I am sufficiently calm, he moves to end the call. I want to make clear this is not done cruelly or callously, just firmly. We are usually pretty focused during calls. He is also careful to check in with me to make sure I am comfortable getting off before he ends and there have been occasions where he has checked in, I’ve fallen apart again and we continue. So for “emergency” calls he gets back within an hour but for routine scheduling calls, it can take several days. Emails are a whole different story. I can email him at any time but he does not respond unless I request that he does (lots of disruptions and sessions centered around my discomfort of asking for what I needed and avoiding calling despite knowing it was a more certain form of contact because it meant asking for something directly). And his response time for emails is anything from a few hours to several days. For scheduling emails, I have known him to take up to five days (which I am happy to say no longer bothers me). I will say that his response time tends to be better for more serious issues.

His other protection is that aside from scheduling conflicts and needing to change my session time, he does NOT initiate contact. He is very responsive but does not check in on me. He trusts me to attend to my needs and ask for help when I need it. So bottom line, BN offers 24/7 coverage because he trusts himself to say no to clients when he needs to and makes sure that is strong enough to take care of his own needs even in the face of emotional pressure from clients. He is also acutely conscious of the fact that he cannot make up for what I didn’t have and may need to hurt me by making it clear, rather than holding out the promise of that which he cannot give and hurting me even more and deeply. I do not think that every therapist is capable of doing that while offering 24/7 contact and I also think some therapists would have a deeper emotional need for time away from clients. A therapist needs to, and in fact is professionally responsible, to know themselves well enough to set their boundaries in a place which they can maintain over the long haul. Hence, the limits trap. Hope that made sense. ~ AG

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