Boundary Violations Research Articles

Distraction or Life Saver?

Previous research has shown that communication technologies may make it challenging for working professionals to manage the boundaries between their work life and home life. For college students, however, there is a less clear definition of what constitutes work and what constitutes home life. As a result, students may use different boundary management strategies than working professionals. To explore this issue, we interviewed 29 undergraduates about how they managed boundaries between different areas of their life. Interviewees reported maintaining flexible and permeable boundaries that are not bounded physically or temporally. They used both technological and non-technological strategies to manage different life spheres. Interviewees saw technology as a major source of boundary violations but also as a boundary managing strategy that allowed them to achieve better life balance. Based on these findings, we propose design implications for tools to better support the boundary management processes of undergraduate students.

The effects of perceptions of staff–inmate boundary violations and willingness to follow rules upon work stress

While most correctional officers are professional in their interactions with inmates, some employees cross the line and engage in boundary violations, which potentially put everyone at risk. Using questionnaires collected from 501 correctional officers employed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, this study examined the relationship between correctional officers’ perceptions of boundary violations and work stress. Ordinary Least Squares regression results indicated that higher levels of work stress were reported by respondents who perceived that coworkers behaved inappropriately with inmates, who reported higher role strain, who feared victimization, and who reported closely following organizational rules. Female officers and officers who viewed inmates as amiable rather than manageable were also found to experience high levels of work stress. The findings suggest that correctional supervisors are likely to be more effective than line staff in developing and sustaining a culture of professionalism and civility, which can lessen the stressors for those working behind prison walls.

Altruism and Boundary Violation

ABSTRACTThe desire to help others is a common motivation for becoming a therapist, and boundary crossings are an expectable part of psychotherapeutic work. However, progression to boundary violation is rare. The concept of an altruistic boundary violation is presented and illustrated with detailed clinical material drawn from the analysis of Mrs. A,1 a generally ethical therapist, whose violation of the therapist/patient boundary with her patient, M, began as an altruistically motivated enactment and boundary crossing. In Mrs. A’s case, and arguably in all similar altruistic boundary violations, a specific fit existed between patient and therapist. The intense need to rescue this particular patient was fueled by Mrs. A’s history of early physical and abandonment trauma, which increased her vulnerability to overidentification with her traumatized patient. The stress of relocation to another city and closing her practice further magnified her susceptibility. The complex clinical, professional, ethical, and legal issues inherent in consulting on such a case are discussed. I describe my countertransference and my parallel enactment, an initial crossing of the boundary between the roles of supervisor and therapist.

Türkiye ve Rusya Arasındaki "Uçak Krizinin" Borsa İstanbul Gıda, İçecek ve Turizm Endeksleri Üzerine Etkisi

On November 24, 2015 at the Syrian border, boundary violations of Russian combat aircraft was shot down by Turkish warplanes that has caused serious problems in terms of bilateral relations. After the incident, Russia unilaterally froze all its military and economic cooperation and has decided to apply economic sanctions to Turkey. Many of the sectors, especially tourism and food sector, were directly affected by these sanctions decisions. In this context, the purpose of the study is to reveal how the companies of BIST Food, Beverage and BIST Tourism Indexes react to this circumstance by employing the event study methodology. According to the findings, it is observed that the companies that are listed in the BIST Food, Beverage Index generally are affected negatively. Also, it has been determined that companies in the BIST Tourism Index exhibit positive AR values in the post-event period. On the other hand, it was noted that the majority of CAAR values were negative. Moreover, although there are no obvious predictable trends, the presence of statistically significant results in the event window on some days has shown that the market is not efficient in a semi-strong form.

The demise of the intervention paradigm—resilience thinking in the Merida Initiative

Post-Cold War interventions have gone through a series of distinct paradigms—each allowing for its own oppositional discourse. This possibility seems to be diminishing with the rise of resilience thinking. In the early 1990s, liberal internationalist framings drove intervention by prioritising individual human rights over state rights to non-interference. Here, it was possible to oppose intervention as illegal boundary violation and unaccountable foreign rule. Neo-liberal approaches circumvented the legal problematic by conflating sovereignty with the capacity for good governance. However, they depended on a strong sociocultural dichotomy, giving rise to accusations of neo-colonialism. In contrast, the resilience discourse emphasises the positive, transformative aspects of local agency, rather than seeing it as deficient and needing paternal guidance. This paper argues that by claiming to merely plus up already existing social practices, international policy engagement in the Global South becomes difficult to conceive as boundary transgression or hierarchical imposition. These insights are drawn out with reference to the Merida Initiative, a US-Mexican security agreement signed in 2007.

Acute and Everyday Violence in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACTPolice torture in Sri Lanka has been subject to extensive investigation and condemnation but remains a widespread and seemingly entrenched practice. Seeking to understand the resistance of such practices to existing interventions, this article locates the police’s use of torture within a broader geography of social violence in Sri Lanka. We discuss the findings of extensive fieldwork conducted in the north-west of Sri Lanka where we examined not only police behaviour and interactions between police and the broader community but also the social dynamics relationships more generally. One significant finding was that violence against certain types of people, including police use of torture against such people, is generally accepted, even as the police are broadly criticised in the community for their unethical and ineffective behaviour. Another significant finding was that the society is riven with social hierarchies and that patterns of domination are embedded in social, political and symbolic systems. We conclude that police torture needs to be understood against the background of broader cultural practices whereby social subjects are disciplined and policed to produce appropriate citizens and punish social boundary violations.

Intelligent Video Surveillance System Guided by RADAR and AIS Data

In order to solve the problems of traditional video monitoring system that only can monitor a certain fixed area, the matching degree of monitored whole or associated surveillance field is not high, an intelligent video monitoring method which using navigation radar automatic tracking parameters and AIS dynamic data was proposed. The system using tracking parameters output messages of NMEA0183 radar or the output data package of AIS, to obtain the target’s motion elements by analyzing the messages to guide the station and network video station by solving the data allopatry to observe the cloud platform, and open the functions of returning Surveillance video, returning the data of AHRS’s azimuth and elevation, boundary violation alarm et al at the same time. Paper introduced the system’s design process and composition of hardware and software, and the simulation results were given.

When Being Human Is a Boundary Crossing

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Ethics CornerFull AccessWhen Being Human Is a Boundary CrossingClaire Zilber, M.D.Claire ZilberSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:19 May 2017https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2017.5b27“Many people are so overwhelmed by the intensity and intimacy of the therapeutic relationship that they experience an otherwise inconsequential gesture or statement as a full-fledged romance or romantic intrusion.” —O.B. Caudill, quoted by Thomas Gutheil and Archie Brodsky, Preventing Boundary Violations in Clinical PracticeAfter a busy day in the office, a psychiatrist goes home to have dinner with her family. At 8 p.m., when the kids are settled into doing their homework, she returns a call from a patient from earlier in the day. To the doctor, this is merely an issue of time management. For the patient, it could seem like unusual behavior and be interpreted as a sign that the patient is either very special or very troublesome to the doctor. Rising from her chair at the end of a session, a patient stumbles and loses her balance. The psychiatrist reflexively catches the patient’s elbow to steady her and leads her to the door with this support. This chivalrous gesture could leave the patient feeling either grateful to the doctor, romantically aroused, or intruded upon, depending on the patient. Like many subtle boundary crossings, these examples demonstrate ways in which a psychiatrist may view his or her behavior as innocuous or helpful while a patient might perceive it as confusing, frightening, unwanted, or seductive. The psychiatrist may remain oblivious to the effect of his or her behavior unless the patient is brave enough to discuss what happened, which temporarily shifts to the patient the responsibility for managing the therapeutic relationship, a function ordinarily assumed by the psychiatrist. Left unaddressed, the tension from these rifts in the therapeutic relationship occasionally lead patients to initiate a complaint to an ethics committee or a licensing board. A single hug initiated by a psychiatrist in celebration of a patient’s achievement, an exchange of a photograph of the psychiatrist so the patient can have a transitional object, or frequent phone contact outside of regularly scheduled sessions, while potentially therapeutic, can at times be perceived by the patient—and regulatory authorities—as inappropriate. How might a psychiatrist behave in the fairly human ways in the above illustrations while fulfilling the expectation that his or her behavior not disrupt the treatment? Any time a psychiatrist’s behavior varies from its usual course, the psychiatrist should consider discussing it. As is often stated in residency training, “It’s not what you say (or do), it’s what you say (or do) next.” It may be useful to run through the following steps each time professional behavior falls outside the norm.Reflect on what happened. How was this behavior different from the usual? Is there something about this particular patient that elicited unusual behavior? Is there something going on in the psychiatrist’s life that is shifting him or her away from standard practice? What are the ways the patient might perceive and respond to this departure from the norm? Consider consultation. If the transference or countertransference feels unusual or intense, supervision may be beneficial. If the psychiatrist is vulnerable because of a life crisis, psychotherapy may be helpful. Seeking guidance, even if it’s just for reassurance, is always a good idea. Acknowledge the boundary crossing to the patient as a way of inviting discussion. This might happen right away at the moment of the unusual behavior, such as, “I know I’m calling later than usual. I sometimes return calls in the evening so I can have dinner with my family.” Or it might happen in the next session or several sessions later if consultation is required.Apologize if the patient expresses discomfort as a result of your behavior and invite further exploration. “I’m sorry that when I grabbed your elbow, it felt patronizing to you. Are there other times when you have felt patronized by me or by others?” Psychiatrists are not automatons. It is inevitable that at times a psychiatrist’s behavior will surprise or upset a patient when it differs from expectations of how the profession behaves. Employing one’s observing ego to preempt departures from the norm when possible, reflecting on what precipitated a boundary crossing, seeking consultation, and discussing the interaction with the patient, including an apology if appropriate, allow the psychiatrist to reestablish his or her professionalism and restores equilibrium in the treatment relationship. ■Claire Zilber, M.D., is chair of the Ethics Committee of the Colorado Psychiatric Society, a corresponding member of APA’s Ethics Committee, and a private practitioner in Denver. ISSUES NewArchived

Revisiting the etiological aspects of dissociative identity disorder: a biopsychosocial perspective.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a chronic post-traumatic disorder where developmentally stressful events in childhood, including abuse, emotional neglect, disturbed attachment, and boundary violations are central and typical etiological factors. Familial, societal, and cultural factors may give rise to the trauma and/or they may influence the expression of DID. Memory and the construction of self-identity are cognitive processes that appear markedly and centrally disrupted in DID and are related to its etiology. Enduring decoupling of psychological modes may create separate senses of self, and metamemory processes may be involved in interidentity amnesia. Neurobiological differences have been demonstrated between dissociative identities within patients with DID and between patients with DID and controls. Given the current evidence, DID as a diagnostic entity cannot be explained as a phenomenon created by iatrogenic influences, suggestibility, malingering, or social role-taking. On the contrary, DID is an empirically robust chronic psychiatric disorder based on neurobiological, cognitive, and interpersonal non-integration as a response to unbearable stress. While current evidence is sufficient to firmly establish this etiological stance, given the wide opportunities for innovative research, the disorder is still understudied. Comparison of well-selected samples of DID patients with non-dissociative subjects who have other psychiatric disorders would further delineate the neurobiological and cognitive features of the disorder, whereas genetic research on DID would further illuminate the interaction of the individual with environmental stress. As such, DID may be seen as an exemplary disease model of the biopsychosocial paradigm in psychiatry.

Muriel Dimen: Teacher, Mentor, Psychoanalytic Scholar

ABSTRACTThis essay is split in content and intent. In the first part, I share my reflections from my long personal relationship with Muriel Dimen, who taught, supervised, and mentored me as a young candidate and beginning scholar. In this part, I try convey how staunch and thorough her commitment, how extraordinary her generosity was in supporting the intellectual development of a new generation of emerging psychoanalytic thinkers and theorists.The second part, written in an entirely different tone, takes on the body of work Dimen produced in the last decade of her life, which focused on sexual boundary violations. This work highlights the hybridity of her thinking and the brilliance of her mind. I flesh out the genealogy of her reflections on this topic and discuss in some depth how her last, posthumously published paper changes the terms of the conversation in this very difficult matter. In this topic, as she had previously done in many others, Dimen’s contribution introduced an entirely novel way to think about the recalcitrant problem of sexual abuses in the consulting room.

Sexual relationships between patient and therapist: Boundary violation or collapse of the therapeutic space?

The thesis is that sexual relations between patient and therapist are not best described by the concept of boundary violations. In fact, boundary violations typically do not result in the pain and trauma that is so characteristic of sexual relationships between patient and therapist. It is argued th

“Why can’t we be lovers?” When the price of love is loss of love: Boundary violations in a clinical context.

“Why can’t we be lovers?” When the price of love is loss of love: Boundary violations in a clinical context.

Eight topics: A conversation on sexual boundary violations between Charles Amrhein and Muriel Dimen.

Eight topics: A conversation on sexual boundary violations between Charles Amrhein and Muriel Dimen.

Sexual boundary violations: An agenda demanding more consideration.

Sexual boundary violations: An agenda demanding more consideration.

When the frame breaks: Ripple effects of sexual boundary violations.

When the frame breaks: Ripple effects of sexual boundary violations.

Sexual boundary violations: A century of violations and a time to analyze.

Sexual boundary violations: A century of violations and a time to analyze.

On transference, passion, and analysts’ sexual boundary violations.

On transference, passion, and analysts’ sexual boundary violations.

Sexual boundary violations in psychoanalysis: A 30-year retrospective.

Sexual boundary violations in psychoanalysis: A 30-year retrospective.

Violating Work-Family Boundaries: Reactions to Interruptions at Work and Home

Our study builds on recent trends to understand the work-family interface through daily experiences of boundary management. In particular, we investigated boundary violations, or events in which family life breaches the boundary of work and vice versa. Our purpose was to enlighten the process between violations and relevant outcomes, building on the foundations of affective events theory and boundary theory. Specifically, we aim to (1) tease apart boundary violations at work and at home from the established construct of work-family conflict, (2) explore the affective events theory process through which cognitive and affective reactions to boundary violation events contribute to work-family conflict and satisfaction, and (3) examine positive and negative reactions to boundary violations. Findings from a 2-week daily diary study of 121 employed participants partially supported our predictions. Boundary violations contributed to general perceptions of work-family conflict both directly and indirectly through cognitive appraisals of thwarted goals and, in the work domain, negative affective reactions. Violations were also related to satisfaction through goal appraisal. Finally, benefits in the form of positive affect were found from boundary violations due to facilitated goals in the interrupting domain.

Can I Trust My Co-worker? Examining Correctional Officers’ Perceptions of Staff–Inmates Inappropriate Relationships within a Southern Penitentiary System

ABSTRACTRecently, Joyce Mitchell, a correctional employee in New York, confessed to assisting two dangerous murderers in an elaborate escape attempt. While our study does not focus on correctional officers who admit to such deviant behaviors, it examines correctional officers’ perceptions of boundary violations committed by their co-workers. Using a macro-level ecological framework as our theoretical perspective, namely Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earl’s (1997) theory of collective efficacy, we surmise that organizational factors such as strong supervision and peer support can build mutual trust in prison environments where correctional officers perceive their jobs to be dangerous and stressful. Our findings have important implications for the management of correctional facilities as well as for the contemporary development and significance of the theory of collective efficacy.