Mastering professional boundaries in therapy (with Dr Bianca Denny)

[00:00:05] Bronwyn: Hey, mental workers. You're listening to the Mental Work podcast, the podcast about working in mental health for early career mental health workers. As always, I'm your host, Bronwyn Milkins, and today we are talking about professional boundaries in therapy.

If you've ever wondered how much self-disclosure is too much, what to do when a client offers you a gift or how to handle situations that feel ethically gray, you're definitely not alone. In this episode, we're going to unpack the topic of professional boundaries, what they are, why they matter, and how to manage them with confidence as an early career clinician. Here to help us out with our topic is our wonderful guest, Dr. Bianca Denny. Hi Bianca.

[00:00:43] Bianca: Hi Bronwyn. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:45] Bronwyn: It's so lovely to have you on the podcast.

Could you please start us off by telling listeners who you are?

[00:00:50] Bianca: Sure. Well my name's Bianca. I'm a clinical psychologist based in Melbourne. Um, I work primarily in private practice, uh, with adults generally doing longer term therapy. Um, but in addition to my private practice work, I also provide both clinical and research supervision to provisional psychologists and post-grad. And I also do some writing, um, in terms of academic research and also writing for the media on mental health and psychology topics.

[00:01:18] Bronwyn: Great, so you're well versed across everything really.

[00:01:21] Bianca: Yes. Yeah.

[00:01:23] Bronwyn: Yeah, and so you've got an upcoming book. It's called The How to of Psychotherapy, and one of those chapters in the book is called Professional Boundaries in Therapy. It's a topic I don't see covered much at all, so I was really interested in how you came to be interested in including this in your upcoming book.

[00:01:40] Bianca: I think boundaries is a topic that comes up time and time again, but it can be a bit ambiguous in terms of how we conceptualize it and therefore kind of how we discuss it, um, both as trainees and as early career clinicians, but also much later in our careers too. It's something that's relevant, I think, for all of us at all stages of our careers.

So I really became interested in it, in thinking about this book. I tried to put together the topics that, um, mostly come up in supervision sessions, uh, with me and my supervisees who are either provisional psychs or in other training schemes or in early career, um, pathways.

So over the past 15 years or so of providing supervision, I've been keeping a bit of a mental note and more recently an actual, um, list of the things that keep coming up time and time again, especially those that cause some anxiety or some confusion for people and boundaries is definitely one of those topics.

[00:02:36] Bronwyn: Yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting that you see it in supervision, because that's what I've talked about it most, in supervision, but I've noticed there's a lack of formal training. So when I saw the contents of your book, I was really delighted that you included it actually.

[00:02:48] Bianca: Yeah, I think it can be a little bit of a misunderstood topic, and it's something that, um, in supervision sessions, people will come with a bit of an ethical dilemma, a professional dilemma, and actually we'll get to the point of saying, I think this is actually a boundary issue, but it's been hard to identify it as that. So hopefully we'll be able to define it a bit more and look forward at some practical and strategic ways of managing it.

[00:03:13] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally. Maybe we could talk about it as a definition then, like what is the boundary? What is a boundary? What professional boundaries should we be keeping in therapy? What even are they?

[00:03:23] Bianca: Sure. Well, one of the things that comes up is firstly the word boundary in and of itself can be a bit confusing because we also use that term socially or outside of our professional lives, and we might even talk about it with clients in a different way to how it applies to us as therapists. So we hear people talk about the importance of keeping boundaries and then how that protects our wellbeing. So it might be boundaries around contact with a family member or a friend or an ex-partner, or people talk about being boundaried with work or not taking work home, but that's very different to what we think about in terms of boundaries in the therapeutic context.

So boundaries are about setting parameters or limits in a therapeutic relationship, and they really are a big professional responsibility for us. It tells us what we can and cannot do with clients. It tells us how to practice in an ethical and professional manner, and it really provides some guidance on our interactions with our clients, so it can really shape a lot of our work.

So those boundaries are there to protect clients. They're also there to protect us as clinicians. But unlike speaking about boundaries in an informal or social way where we think about an individual's wellbeing here, we're thinking about a client's wellbeing, not so much protecting the therapist's wellbeing.

[00:04:38] Bronwyn: Totally. So there's the colloquial term and usage, or the word boundary, but in the context of therapy and being a psychologist, there's a very different usage and I guess the primary aim is to protect the client, and then the secondary is it also protects us as well.

[00:04:52] Bianca: it absolutely does protect us. It protects us by ensuring that we practice in an ethical and professional manner.

[00:04:58] Bronwyn: And I was wondering like what's the difference between a boundary crossing and a violation? But to answer that as well, I thought we would need to know what's the role of a therapist, and I was curious what you viewed that as.

[00:05:10] Bianca: Yeah, so I think it's really up to us. We can't expect our clients to know what boundaries are, just as, we can't expect them to really know what therapy is, or what to do in therapy. So I think our role as therapists or clinicians all through our work is to bring people back in, to thinking about why they're there, what they'd like out of it, and how therapy differs from a informal relationship, such as a coffee with a friend or chatting about a problem, you know, with a parent, um, or a sibling or something like that.

[00:05:45] Bronwyn: Yeah. So in light of that, we need the therapist to maintain these boundaries. What would then count as a boundary crossing and a violation?

[00:05:55] Bianca: Sure. So boundary crossings and violations are conceptually quite different. Um, so when we talk about boundaries as an overall or umbrella term, it is important that we then consider what a boundary crossing is and what a boundary violation is. Um, and it can be easy to confuse the two in a sense, especially we're in the midst of an ethical or professional problem ourselves.

So a boundary crossing is an action or behavior that's appropriate given the clinical presentation or the nature of the therapeutic relationship. Um, but when it's taken out of context, it might seem that it's unethical or professional. So, for example, it's easy to say that gift giving is not allowed in therapy or in therapeutic relationships, but in some circumstances it's okay. Like a client giving us a small Christmas gift, you know, something of low monetary value, um, there's real goodwill in that, and typically no harm comes from a boundary crossing. Um, it's not always possible to avoid boundary crossings, and in some cases it might benefit the therapy or therapeutic relationship to have a boundary crossing. So actually declining or saying no to a gift might be harmful to that therapeutic relationship.

A boundary violation though, is quite different in terms of their serious breaches of professional and ethical obligations. And typically these are harmful or even can be exploitative of the client. So usually these are around the therapeutic relationship morphing into something else like a friendship or relationship, or even a sexual relationship. Um, it is important to know though, that these boundary violations often start as a boundary crossing. Um, therefore it's really important to keep in check with ourselves and with our clients, what's happening in our relationship, and if any boundaries are being crossed.

[00:07:39] Bronwyn: This is a good time to then jump to the challenges you've amongst early career therapist because you just, kind of, uh, describing the slippery slope concept, it made me reflect on my own anxiety that I had starting out. And I remember going to my supervisor very early on when I was seeing a child client, and I said to my supervisor, I told, I told the child client my favorite color, and I was like, oh, no, like I've used too much self-disclosure. And I think that anxiety around that slippery slope could be a common challenge. Is that something that you've noticed?

[00:08:11] Bianca: Absolutely. Although I think the good news is that most trainee and early career clinicians are really cogniscent of boundaries, and they actually do a really good job of meeting their obligations around ethical and professional behavior. But I do understand it's a really common point of anxiety and distress, um, for early career clinicians thinking that they've done something wrong or thinking that they've breached some kind of boundary.

So a few common boundary concerns are, as you mentioned, self-disclosure, um, gift giving and gift receiving.` Another one can be accepting referrals from people, um, with something in common, like people who are friends or family members of current clients as well... so where those kind of multiple relationships or dual relationships can exist. Um, I also think, you know, with changes in technology, there's also more queries around boundaries, particularly in relation to online communication, social media. Um, such as receiving emails and text messages from clients, um, what to do if you see a client's, um, dating profile on an app or something like that. There's all sorts of things that are coming up that are a bit harder to manage in today's world. But I do think self-disclosure, as you mentioned, your experience is an interesting one to think about. It's something that comes up a lot and it's one of those areas that's certainly not black and white. There's a lot of gray areas in there as well.

[00:09:34] Bronwyn: Yeah, I think self-disclosure is really interesting and I had a few questions around that from your chapter. I thought we could go into that. Is that okay?

[00:09:41] Bianca: Yeah, certainly.

[00:09:42] Bronwyn: So one of the paragraphs in your chapter, which I really enjoyed reading, was about self-disclosure in relation to really popular therapists. So you mentioned Irvin Yalom and Lori Gottlieb, who are really experienced therapists and they've written books, and in these books they often detail, uh, I guess in great detail about clients and their own experiences and their own personal feelings. And I, I just wondered like what's your perspective on self-disclosure there and what can we take away as early career clinicians?

[00:10:13] Bianca: Well, as you mentioned, clinicians like Irvin Yalom, Lori Gottlieb, there's some other, um, you know, really popular clinicians. Um, like Stephen Gross is another one who writes in some detail, um, I mean, it's a bit of a tradition really for clinicians to use. Um, cases from their work and also their own personal experiences to educate and to inform and in some cases entertain as well. Something like Lori Gottlieb's book is probably more entertaining than educational, I would say.

I think a really important thing to consider is that all of those clinicians are a fair way down the track of, um, their professional lives. And they also work with other people, you know, who would no doubt give them feedback and guidance on what can be revealed, on what's a, a good way to market themselves. And we also should keep in mind that there's a lot of information that they likely don't reveal about themselves. You know, so they present things in a professional and particular way, um, you know, but we, but we shouldn't be thinking that they're sharing everything about themselves. So with their years of experience, they've got, um, they've got a lot of insight and, you know, a, a good developed sense of common sense in a way on how to do that.

[00:11:30] Bronwyn: Yeah, so in your book, Bianca, you talk about this idea of public self versus private self versus secret self, and I've noticed that a lot of early career clinicians, like we might feel a lot of pressure to post about ourselves publicly, and I think a lot of other people are doing it online as well, like who are therapists, and I wondered how you approach this in, how you relate it to yourself.

[00:11:51] Bianca: Yeah, sure. So I think it is true that the psychology industry, if we can call it, that, has changed a fair bit and there seems to be an expectation on psychologists and therapists to reveal a bit more of themselves, um, to talk about themselves and who they are in a way, um, to have a good fit with clients and the rest of it.

The way I approach this is thinking about this spectrum, if you like, of from public self to private self, to secret self. So there's some information that I'm happy to share with the public about myself, about my experiences. Um, next, there's a private self where it's, I suppose, my deeper thoughts about myself and my own reckoning and my own analysis of what's happening for me. And then there's my secret self, which is unknown to others and the things that I wanna keep to myself. I also apply this kind of thinking, not just to myself, but to other people who I might write about or think about. So I'm always very careful to de-identify information. Um, always very careful to make sure things are anonymous. And if I'm talking about other people that I know, not talking about clients here, but my own personal experiences with family or friends, I'll check with them, um, about what's being revealed and likely anonymize it or de-identify it anyway.

[00:13:05] Bronwyn: Yeah, I really like this approach. And again, just coming back to early career clinicians, I think a lot of us we're on the front foot of being innovative. So like we're seeing say on LinkedIn that people are posting or trying to post really engaging stories, but they're inadvertently disclosing details or clients. And I could completely empathize with other early career psychs being like, oh, there seems to be a way to get engagement and to really like educate the public or, or whatever aim they're trying to achieve, but we could inadvertently, breach a client's privacy or, or harm ourselves in the process by disclosing too much of ourselves, which is, you know, you can't really take it back.

[00:13:40] Bianca: That's a really good point. You can't take something back. Um, the golden rule, I think with self-disclosure and that I talk about a little bit in this chapter, is self-disclosure should always be for the benefit of a client. It should never be for the benefit of the therapist. So always checking in with yourself, thinking, what's my motivation here for sharing this bit of information, and how much do I need to share?

Often we can be useful in our self-disclosure about something. Um, you know, your example of sharing with a child client your favorite color, that helps build rapport, you know, but it doesn't necessarily tell that child or their parent anything about your private self or your secret self or something that you might not want other people to know. Um, if you'd then gone on to talk about your favorite color and why it's your favorite color and your memories of that favorite color and that you painted your living room wall, that color, that's probably going too far. That's information that they don't need to know.

Um, the other point about self-disclosure that's related to that I think is, um, that clients are not bound by confidentiality. So anything that we tell clients or anything that we put out there on LinkedIn or on Facebook or in any other kind of social media platform, clients might share that information with other people. So when we're in self-disclosure, particularly in session, we need to think about, well, I'm not just telling this person about that, um, it's likely that they might go and tell other people, their partner at home or friends or... you know, once that self-disclosure is made, you don't have any control of where else that information might go.

[00:15:15] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally. I think that's a really important point, and I had a bit of a tricky question around this, which was in your chapter you talk about boundary crossing, that it's a clinically appropriate course of action. It's appropriate by both the therapist and the patient, so they consider that both appropriate.

But I thought of a situation where, say like, let's say a client wants to show the therapist pictures of their dog. And to me, like having spoken with my friend who are psychs, that seems to be a pretty common situation. Um, they're pretty keen. but what if somebody, uh, then the client goes on to tell their partner. It's like, oh, showing my therapist pictures of the dog, the. The partner is like, why on earth would you do that? They consider it not appropriate. And I guess my question is like, given that other people can misinterpret what we do in therapy, is it better to be safe than sorry?

[00:16:01] Bianca: You are very right in saying we can't control what other people might think or feel about the way that we work. And often I hear from people, oh, my therapist said this, or my psychologist said that. And I think, did they really? That doesn't sound very likely. Or sometimes when things are second or third hand information, you know, it loses its accuracy. I do think with anything we do in session, it's important to check in with ourselves and think how may it be perceived by other people? Um, but that shouldn't deter us from acting the best interest of our clients as well.

[00:16:35] Bronwyn: Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

And something else I wanted to speak with you about was sometimes we don't realize a boundary has been crossed until after it happens. What's some of the signs that a boundary might be getting blurry or crossed?

[00:16:48] Bianca: In terms of things in session, I think there can be some, um, real pinnacle things that can indicate that to us. So it might be things like finding it difficult to keep to time with certain clients. It might be things like giving too much self-disclosure. You know, something that's not usual for you. Um, it might be things like relaxing your boundaries around other things like, um, fees for example. You know, or really feeling that say, I don't know, someone's coming to the end of their Medicare debatable sessions for the year, and you are really thinking, okay, well I need to discount these sessions or even need to work pro bono with this client, you know? That's an indication that perhaps there's something more going on in the therapeutic relationship that's impacting your boundaries as well.

[00:17:33] Bronwyn: I really love how you put that and I just wanted to speak to the value of supervision and really nutting these out because like I found it immensely helpful to talk about some of these situations and I often develop a really different perspective and I identify something in myself like, oh, I'm going into rescuer mode and that's why I wanna lower my fees with this client, and then I can take a different course of action that really protects those boundaries. I mean, it might be the same action that I was considering, but at least I've talked about it thoroughly. I just wondered whether you could speak to the role of supervision and how that plays in helping us maintain boundaries.

[00:18:04] Bianca: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, supervision... supervision is so integral at all stages of our career, but we know, especially in those early years, it, it has a slightly different role. Also peer supervision. Checking in with your colleagues. Um, hopefully as we progress well in our early years of our career and ongoing, we'll have a core trusted group of peers who we can check in about these things with.

Supervision,

um, individual supervision is really important, but I also like the idea of self supervision. You know, checking with yourself like you're. You know, because it's not always possible to check in, um, with our peer supervision group or an individual supervisor. So trying to adopt your own thinking around supervision and really even saying to yourself, what might my supervisor say about this? You know, what, what can I predict they might cover about this? Or what might they advise me to do? And that way we can develop our own sense of supervision. That's really important, especially in these day-to-day things that come up around boundaries.

[00:19:01] Bronwyn: Totally. So one thing related to this, which I really enjoyed reading in your chapter, but I think it might be helpful for listeners to hear, is you say social media is not a place to seek specific advice or guidance on an ethical dilemma or professional quandry. Could you just explain why?

[00:19:16] Bianca: Gosh, there's a lot of reasons why. I think one of the primary issues is it's simply not private. Social media is never private. Anything that we share, even if it's on a closed supervision group or a closed page, um, might be accessible to other people. You know, it's very easy to take a screenshot and share that information.

Um, and I think it also negates the purpose of supervision, you know, it deters us a little bit from this idea of self supervision as we just talked about. Um, I think it's useful sometimes to sit with an idea, and to try and have some self supervision before taking it to your peers, you know, in a formal or informal setting outside of social media or to your individual supervisor as well.

So there are lots of things we can do before we jump to social media. You know, revise our formulation around a client, reflect on a specific, um, session or particular part of the session before looking to other people who may or may not be able to give us the appropriate advice.

[00:20:17] Bronwyn: Yeah, and one thing you talked about in relation to this was like, our clients don't expect us to seek supervision in this way, like on Facebook groups. And that totally resonated with me because I've been a client of psychologists, and I would be really mortified actually, if I saw them posting in a group my information, just talking about it with other therapists. And even if they had tried to de-identify, I still wouldn't like it.

[00:20:40] Bianca: Yeah, I'd be pretty horrified. Um, I've wondered though, if that's because I am not from a kind of digital native generation, you know?

[00:20:48] Bronwyn: Yeah, well, I'm like, what am I, I think I'm a younger millennial. I'm a nineties- child of the nineties. Um, and I still don't like it, but maybe like younger folks who are more digital natives, maybe they're okay with it. Um, I guess it's, maybe it's a more like err on the side of caution.

[00:21:05] Bianca: Absolutely, I think absolutely are on the side of caution. I think social media and Facebook groups and things like that are really useful in many ways, um, but there's a time and a place for proper supervision.

[00:21:16] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally. So how do our own personal histories or blind spots affect how we like, set or maintain boundaries in therapy as well?

[00:21:24] Bianca: Well, we all come into a therapy room, whether you're the therapist or the client with our own stuff and our own histories, um, and that's unavoidable, but it is necessary sometimes to manage it. It's generally true that clinicians who come to the attention of a PA or some other kind of disciplinary or regulatory board tend to be experiencing something in their own personal lives, um, that is not well managed and that has impacted their work. So we are really talking about here about the concepts of transference and counter transference. So that is, you know, how the client and the clinician respond to each other based on their own personal histories.

And these are things that we sometimes , might not even realize. Sometimes it's very easy to spot, okay, well, I'm seeing a client with exactly the same problem that I've gone through in my own life, you know, or I'm experiencing a relationship breakup at the moment, and so is my client. You know, that's bound to raise some stuff for us. But sometimes it's much more discreet and we might not consciously kind of realize it as well.

[00:22:26] Bronwyn: So it's really important to do that self-reflection, professional supervision, and then your own therapy as well.

[00:22:31] Bianca: All of those things. Yeah, so absolutely your own reflection, engaging in supervision and your own therapy at different times. And I'd encourage people to try different types of therapy as well. I know it's not a mandated thing in Australia for therapists to undergo their own therapy, but I think it's probably the most useful thing we can do as therapists.

[00:22:52] Bronwyn: Totally. No, I agree. And we've talked about that a bit on the podcast. I've had some folks from who have gotten their qualifications, like in Germany and I think over there it's, there's some mandatory components to therapy and they've really, even though it's been expensive 'cause they have to pay for it themselves, they've also really benefited from it.

[00:23:07] Bianca: Yep.

One of the really good things about engaging in your own therapy is that observation of another therapist. Um, you know, you can see how they manage things, you can see what it's like to be on the other side of the couch, uh, what works, and also what, what doesn't work. You know, what you haven't liked, for example, or what hasn't resonated or jelled with you and what you might not do as a therapist.

[00:23:31] Bronwyn: Totally. I guess one thing I wanted to bring up with you was I do see like a changing landscape. Even in the time that I've been a psychologist, which has been about seven years, and I do feel like there are some, I guess some thoughts around like that we need to reduce professional hierarchy and we need to make sure that we're acknowledging our privilege, which are things that I agree with, but I also feel like how do I maintain steadiness in light of changing things around me. Does that make sense?

[00:24:00] Bianca: Yeah, it does, and I've noticed this too. There is an expectation, as you said, for therapists to be, in a sense, more personable and more relatable, which is a good thing in some ways. But I think we should also acknowledge that some of the people we work with are very unwell, um, and might not be able to respect those, um, boundaries or, you know, have reciprocity in, in that behavior. So we always have to protect ourselves, I think, um, in terms of how we engage with people and what information we put out there about ourselves.

[00:24:32] Bronwyn: Yeah, I guess, yeah, thinking about those implications, 'cause another example I was thinking of was I've received a lot of training in schema therapy and in some thoughts of schema therapy, they have this idea of reparenting and it's a much closer relationship than I guess a standard therapeutic like CBT based relationship. And that was quite confusing for me early on, and I had to talk about it supervision a lot because I was like, this model is kind of encouraging me that texts are okay between sessions and it just felt really uncomfortable. So I guess like you, your suggestion is really like, check in.

[00:25:02] Bianca: Check in with yourself and also do what's right in terms of your own values and own principles. You know, we're all comfortable with different things, um, in our personal and professional lives. And check in with yourself about whether it aligns with how you wanna operate and how you want to work.

[00:25:20] Bronwyn: Yeah, totally. That's really helpful. So if a clinician finds themselves in a tricky boundary situation, like with their personal histories, they're over identifying with a client or feeling pulled in, into actions that they don't normally do with other clients, what are some practical steps that they can take?

[00:25:36] Bianca: I think the first thing is to not panic. You know, you're not doing anything wrong. Um, boundary crossings and thinking about boundaries are a normal part of our work. They're very likely to come up. In fact, as we've said, it can be helpful to think about boundaries. And sometimes when boundaries are crossed or um, or when boundary issues occur, it can actually benefit the therapy or the therapeutic relationship depending on what we do with it. Um, but I think it's always okay to take a step back and say. You know, let me think about this, or I'm not sure. Let me check in with my supervisor, or let me get back to you.

[00:26:12] Bronwyn: Mm. Yeah, absolutely. I found that really helpful personally. Um, like one tip I picked up from supervision was like, if you can't like, think about, uh, how to resolve, I guess an ethical issue that's come up in, in therapy straight away, just let them know that you'll think about it and that you'll take it as supervision that they've raised a really important area of consideration.

[00:26:32] Bianca: Absolutely. And it's also okay to say, I've thought about this in a different way, or I've consulted with someone, or I've checked my code of ethics and actually I can no longer do do what we discussed. You know, I've had situations, for example, where in a first session I've realized that the client is actually, um, you know, someone who lives in my neighborhood, or we have something else in common such as, you know, kids at the same school, for example. Um, and I've called them after the session and said, you know, upon reflection, now that I've got this new information, unfortunately we're not able to continue our work together. Um, and I think people appreciate the fact that you've taken some time to think about it and that you've gotten back to them as well.

[00:27:18] Bronwyn: Yep. Totally.

A really interesting area that I wanted to ask you about was, if we noticed that there are colleagues who seem to be crossing boundaries, whether we've heard about it or we've observed it ourself, could you just offer some insights into how we might manage this?

[00:27:34] Bianca: Yeah, sure. I think this is a really interesting point and a really important point, especially when we're in the early stages of our career. Um, it's another dilemma that is discussed in the book. It can be really distressing, especially for early career clinicians when a colleague or someone senior to them appears to have crossed a boundary or acted in an unethical or unprofessional manner. We're all responsible for upholding the professional and ethical standards of our profession and being junior or subordinate to a colleague doesn't absolve us of that responsibility. And although it can seem scary, um, it's really important that we have a bit of a process or a thinking in place about how we can manage these.

So first of all, you know, seeking supervision is a really, is a really good first step. Um, but if you're thinking that a colleague has crossed a boundary, often early career clinicians will think, right, well, I need to jump straight to reporting this to AHPRA or maybe making a notification. But in fact, APA and other regulatory bodies will expect that you first try to discuss it directly with the person involved or attempted to resolve the issue with them, you know, if it's safe to do so.

So I'll give you an example of when I recently faced this dilemma I saw on a social media platform, a post from a clinician, kinda as we were discussing earlier, looking for referral options, um, for a family member of a client, and when I read through this, I thought it had really clearly identifiable information, you know, including the client's presentation and symptoms, their gender, their age, and also their suburb as well. So I sent a message to the clinician expressing my concerns. They acknowledged the concerns and actually amended the post, you know, to further de-identify it. And I think we were both satisfied with that. Um, but if they'd not done that, if they'd resisted that for some reason, my next step probably would've been to contact the site administrators to report it as a breach of the group rules. So, you know, it's always necessary to approach the clinician first, if it's safe to do so, hear their response, and then escalate it if necessary.

[00:29:36] Bronwyn: I really like this response because it's very calm and measured and it also follows what it's expected of us as well, because quite often I do see online where people will post something and then the respondents will say, "report them", and it actually ignores those steps. That you just described. So I'm really glad that we're able to discuss that.

 sometimes early career clinicians in particular, and this has come up on the podcast before, but they might notice that their own supervisor is perhaps they feel are not meeting the ethical standards or their workplace is not meeting ethical standards in some ways, and they feel kind of constrained from bringing it up. Um, do you have any insights what they could do in this situation?

[00:30:11] Bianca: I would like to think that supervisors are open to feedback and that you can have that discussion with them. In the first instance, I think it's still important to try and discuss it with your supervisor, even if as an early career clinician that can feel quite intimidating. It might be useful to get some ideas from your peers as well on how to do that.

Also seeking varied supervision, as well. So even if you're in a workplace where supervision is provided, it still might be a good idea to seek some external supervision around things as well, and, and talk through this.

[00:30:45] Bronwyn: Yeah, I really like that because I think as early career clinicians, we're still developing our idea of what's normal. And so maybe if we've just had one supervisor and they're doing something, um, we, we might think it's normal and assume that, but actually when we go seek alternative supervision or different modalities, we might find, oh, actually that changes our perspective of, of that.

[00:31:05] Bianca: Yeah, there's so many different ways of thinking about things and different ways of doing things, especially when we're working across different therapeutic modalities, and especially if we have, you know, a novel or a new kind of presentation that we've not worked with before, even one that perhaps our supervisor hasn't directly worked with, it's really important then to seek out some specialized supervision in that field too. It can really broaden our thinking around things and also help develop our skills too.

[00:31:29] Bronwyn: Totally. So Bianca, it's been such a great conversation. I feel like we've whizzed through so much informative stuff. What do you hope that listeners will take away from our conversation today?

[00:31:41] Bianca: I think in terms of boundaries, it's really ever changing. As we've discussed, technology brings its new challenges as well, but also our own personal circumstances, um, what's happening in our personal lives and the different career stages that we progress through, really change our thinking and approach to boundaries as well. So we're all really still learning regardless of our career stage.

In saying that there's really no such thing as a stupid question. There's nothing that you shouldn't feel comfortable to take to supervision. Um, and I think it's also important to remember that every single clinician has had some kind of misstep with boundaries at some stage of their career. And most of the time, both we and our clients completely recover from them that there's no real harm done.

[00:32:26] Bronwyn: Awesome. Thank you so much, Bianca. It's been a really insightful, reassuring, and also yeah, practical conversation, so thanks again.

[00:32:34] Bianca: Thank you.

[00:32:35] Bronwyn: Listeners, if you found this episode helpful, please follow the Mental Work podcast and make sure you put this episode in somebody else's ears. It's the best way to get the podcast out there. That's a wrap. Thanks for listening to Mental Work. I'm Bronwyn Milkins. Catch you next time. Bye.