Still thinking about how I knew my therapist's boundaries when we never really had that talk.

1. He doesn't play free and loose with emails and texting. In fact, until a serious family emergency came up where he wanted me to directly call him, I never had a direct phone number for him. Always went through his front office or an answering service. I could always contact him by phone that way and he always got back to me that day, but he didn't give easy access to email or texting which seems to be an area where people end up having boundary problems with their therapists. Perhaps too many therapists haven't thought the technology aspect through well enough and then end up changing their boundaries mid-stream when they realize they were too loose with their accessibility?

2. He never made promises of always being there, never leaving, etc. He's pretty realistic that way. His priority in his life has always very clearly been his family (which I highly respect) and that in itself is a boundary that I intuitively understand. It seems that oftentimes boundary issues that get mentioned here result when clients have been promised to be the therapist's priority, to always be available, etc. It isn't a realistic promise, and while perhaps well-intentioned, it often leads to confusion and feelings of abandonment when therapists have to backtrack and say they didn't really mean what they said they meant.

Those are the two things that come to mind. He didn't have to have that boundary talk because these were just his standard way of practicing that clearly indicated his boundaries without there having to be a big to-do about it.