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This is, of course, inspired by Rainbow's thread, but my intention (and hope) is to not apply this to her situation. Because it occurred to me that the issue of therapists breaking, in one way or another, their own boundaries is something I've heard come up here every once in a while and it might be worth exploring.
So I'm going to offer a hypothetical and then I'd be really interested in knowing what you guys think.
Let's say my therapist and I have agreed that I can e-mail once a week, and thus far I've been good about complying with this. However, one week, something really big comes up, and I e-mail a second time. He responds to the e-mail and doesn't say anything about our agreement, either in his response or in session.
So, what if I then go on to send an extra e-mail the following week, and maybe even the week after that (and it's not life or death stuff).
1) Am I 'justified' in continuing to send extra e-mails based on the fact that my therapist 'violated his own boundary' that one time? Is he being 'inconsistent' (thus unnecessarily confusing the patient) or did he just make a considered decision to make that exception? Is it okay for me to continue sending more than one e-mail a week because, by making that exception, the therapist was, in fact, conveying to me, that the boundary no longer exists?
2) If I send an extra e-mail the following week (and it's really not life or death) and my therapist scolds me for this (i.e. come on now, we agreed to once a week, we talked about not doing therapy by e-mail) would I be justified in responding, "But you broke the boundary yourself! You answered my e-mail and didn't say there was anything wrong with me sending it. How can you criticize me for doing it!"
This is somewhat oversimplified, I know there would normally be various factors to consider, but what do you guys think about this, on the face of it? And what other factors may come into play?
Thanks!
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