‘Boundaries’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life, Page 2

How actively useful are boundaries in the therapeutic relationship? They are obviously a part of the ‘real world’ in which both client and therapists live, organising and managing their money and time. But in some humanistic, relationship-based schools of therapy, they seem to bring out a certain contradiction…

The lesson that it is facilitative not to press others to disclose, and to communicate that lack of pressure explicitly, is a useful one in all kinds of relationships; mothers persistently asking their children to tell them what happened at school springs to mind, as does the situation in which the stereotypical wife ‘asks the husband to talk about his feelings’.

Psychology today reports on ‘permaparenting’, the phenomenon of young adults coming back to the nest for indefinite amounts of time, or never leaving it at all. It paints a fairly bleak picture of young adults who are not mature enough to leave, and parents who are not mature enough to let them.

‘Say Yes to No’ is the name of a Minnesota based movement designed to save children from what they define as the contemporary US ‘yes’ culture of self indulgence. Psychologist and author David Walsh calls saying no a parenting strategy which will save our children from a condition he calls “discipline deficit disorder, or DDD”…

September Blues — it’s the end of the holidays. Fear of change sets in, fear of losing ourselves once more in the everyday routine. What can we do about it?