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imapatient · May 31, 2010, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rainbow8

imapatient: My T is not "so" worried. I had told her I didn't want her to be angry, and she said her feeling wasn't anger, but that she was scared, that I was crossing a boundary. It's because I looked up more than the average person would because I'm interested in genealogy. I understand why she would be scared.

OK. Being "scared" qualifies as "so worried" and then worse. In my book.

If all you did--at the point you talked to her--was to look her up using some legal info source with info in the public domain, then I don't see a boundary crossing. And it seems your T is making a bigger deal out of what you did. If you too it further--in certain ways, I can see concern on her part, but for what you'd done? No. I think your T has a boundary issue herself personally. Your therapy is supposed to be about your thoughts and feelings, not the T's. She's supposed to manage her feelings. It seems to me she's blown it out of proportion at this point, causing you excess grief about it.

Would your T consider it a boundary violation if you looked her up in a phone book? That's essentially what you've described having done (at the time you spoke to her). And if you got more than simple address/phone, if it's from a legal resource in the public domain, that info is out there to be had and T's have to live with it. It's not 1990.

To me a boundary violation is a violation of privacy, personal space, getting involved in your T's life, etc. or some stated standard. You haven't contacted her, gone to her house, read her mail, sent her mail, talked to her neighbors of friends and family, hired someone to gather info not in the public domain, haven't followed her, haven't threatened, haven't eavesdropped, etc.

How experienced is she? It seems to me that she's put her (uncalled for) feelings of being scared front and center in the situation, when the topic should be what's driving these issues for you. What you said about wanting to know what her house and neighborhood are like fits exactly what went on with me.