My T told me in one of my early sessions that he has very strong boundaries. We never discussed what those were, but his statement was meant to reassure me, as I had become worried I shouldn't tell him something because it was too awful for him to hear, so he was letting me know that he took really good care of himself. I appreciate that, so I know he doesn't get frustrated with his work, burnt out, overwhelmed, etc. He takes care of himself.

My T self discloses a lot, so I know a lot about him. His office is a reflection of his personality and the things that are important to him in life. We have many conversations about the interesting things in his office.

I ran up against a texting boundary once. Our session was over and I wanted to schedule my next appointment but I had left my calendar in my car. He gave me a couple of times to choose from and I asked if I could go to my car and text him from there what appointment I wanted. I really wanted to confirm immediately as his appointments fill up so fast. But he thought about it a second and then said no, I could not text him. Whoopsie. That's the only boundary I've directly come up against.

My T doesn't do phone therapy. He isn't good about answering voice mails so there's really no point in calling. He told me early on that it can take him a few days to get back to someone. I know that he only listened to voicemail during working hours anyway, not on the evenings, weekends, or holidays. His voicemail message refers people to a crisis line if they are in immediate need. I email him whenever I need to reschedule or cancel, but I don't email him about therapy or try to get him to give me advice or support by email. He just does not do therapy outside of the session. More recently he has hired a person to return his phone calls on the evenings that he works. He really likes this system as now clients can get a swifter response to their calls. This is for reschedulings. I got in the email habit for that, though, so I still email to reschedule. He was very careful to tell me he was hiring this scheduler who would be returning calls. This was really courteous because even though I haven't before done this before, maybe I might want to leave him a really personal message on his voicemail and wouldn't want a hired hand to hear it.

My T requires 24 hours notice cancellation or clients get charged for the session.

I really like that we have very separate lives and that he and I don't have frequent phone and email interactions between sessions. I like that T is in this separate space for me, and is there in his office whenever I show up for an appointment, there to help me. I don't mean to keep him in this little box, but it really works for me to have his presence in my life contained like this. Interestingly, the phone scheduler person he hired is a family member. This actually makes me want to stick with email even more, as I don't want to have a call back from his family member. I just like keeping his outside life and my outside life separate, and this would be a crossover I don't want. Is this a boundary I have? Maybe I have strong boundaries on this sort of thing too!