Summary of Boundary Violations Avoiding Boundary Violations

Boundary Violations in Counseling

Prevalence and Impact

  • Sexual/romantic relationships with current clients are explicitly prohibited by the ACA and AMHCA codes of ethics.
  • Despite these clear ethical standards, a significant percentage (43.9%) of counselor liability claims involve boundary violations of a sexual/romantic nature.
  • Sexual misconduct accounts for a substantial portion of the top allegations, with sexual boundary violations comprising 53.9% of the top six allegations.
  • Boundary violations can have harmful and complex effects on clients.

Recommendations for Managing Attraction

When Counselors Are Attracted to Clients:
  1. Acknowledge Feelings: Recognize that attraction to clients is a common experience among clinicians (72% – 88%).
  2. Do Not Act or Disclose: Avoid acting on the attraction or disclosing these feelings to the client which constitutes an abuse of power and can harm the client.
  3. Balance Reaction: Avoid obsessing over feelings or immediately terminating the client relationship.
  4. Seek Consultation: Consult with a supervisor, mentor, or colleague to process and reflect on these feelings.
  5. Use Emotion Regulation Strategies: Implement strategies to monitor and modify emotional responses, such as attentional deployment.
When Clients Disclose Attraction to Their Counselor:
  1. Support Exploration: Allow the client space to explore their feelings while maintaining appropriate boundaries.
  2. Explore Emotional Response: Reflect on your emotional response to the disclosure, both in the moment and in supervision.

Recommendations for Counselor Educators

  1. Prepare Trainees: Openly address the topic of sexual attraction in counselor training and supervision.
  2. Avoid Assumptions: Be multiculturally sensitive and avoid making assumptions about who may be attracted to whom.
  3. Initiate Difficult Discussions: Proactively bring up the topic of sexual attraction in therapy.
  4. Understand Power Imbalances: Be cautious and sensitive to power imbalances in educational settings, modeling appropriate behaviors.

CNA and HPSO Recommendations

The CNA and HPSO provide the following recommendations specific to sexual/romantic involvement with clients:

  1. Prohibit and prevent any sexual activity with a current client, obtaining clinical supervision and/or consultation as needed.
  2. Manage transference and/or countertransference with appropriate clinical techniques, obtaining clinical supervision and/or consultation as needed.
  3. Document all instances of transference/countertransference in the clients’ clinical record.
  4. Terminating the client does not waive or eliminate the prohibition against a sexual/romantic relationship.
  5. Avoid extending the counseling relationship beyond conventional boundaries with clients, their significant others and their family members.
  6. Avoid any activities with clients that fall outside of accepted medical or mental health practices.