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What if the client went started the beginning of the relationship creating boundaries and setting rules for T. How would that play out. Would it be feasible? Isn't therapy about the client and isn't the client paying for the service?
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In my experience therapy is mainly about the therapist.
In theory the client can set boundaries, ask questions, influence the process... but only so far as it will not threaten the basic hierarchy (in most of what I read or have experienced).
I find most discussion of this paternalistic and condescending. All of the focus is on the therapist's "professional" boundaries. The idea of client boundaries seems an afterthought. Clients are often regarded as children and if they do assert "boundaries" I think some/many therapists would see them as symbolic or make-believe (like a child making pretend calls on a play telephone), and subordinate to the therapist's "adult" boundaries.