Professional boundaries are the physical, emotional, and psychological limits that define appropriate interactions and relationships in the workplace.
Professional boundaries help distinguish professional conduct from personal involvement. They can ensure mutual respect between staff and the people they support.
A range of individual circumstances and internal factors can impact professional boundaries. For this reason, employee wellbeing is crucial to developing and maintaining effective professional boundaries.
Professional Boundaries can be difficult to define. We might all have different ideas of what constitutes a professional boundary. Plus, how we operate professionally will depend a wide range of factors, including our culture, job role, bias, levels of experience, personality, organisational remit, and more.
Legislation, along with an organisation’s codes of conduct and safeguarding policies, will govern the most obvious and egregious boundary violations. Beyond this, organisations have a big role to play in ensuring that the correct conditions and support systems are in place to maintain professional boundaries.
Why Professional Boundaries Matter
Clear professional boundaries are vital for protecting your own wellbeing. They are also essential for creating a respectful, productive, and ethical workplace based on trust.
When boundaries are clear, people know what behaviour is acceptable. This fosters a culture of safety, trust, and mutual respect.
When receiving support, people often share intimate, traumatic, or sensitive details. They trust the people they talk to with this information, and boundaries help ensure that this trust is not exploited.
Clear limits also help those receiving support build resilience and independence, rather than becoming overly reliant on your organisation.
Plus, without proper organisational support, employees may feel overwhelmed by their support work, or emotionally drained. Effective boundary setting on an individual and organisational level can provide a framework for self-care, reducing burnout and fostering a healthier work-life balance.
How Professional Boundaries Can Differ
We are all unique. We all bring our own values, personal circumstances, morals, and experiences to our roles. All of this can shape our view of what constitutes a healthy professional boundary.
For example, an employee or volunteer at an organisation might have certain emotional needs. They might have a desire for connection, validation, or approval. This would be appropriate in forming meaningful relationships. But in a professional capacity, it could lead to blurred boundaries.
Stress and burnout are key factors to consider when negotiating boundaries. High stress levels can impair judgment, which might make some more likely to overstep boundaries. A lack of opportunity for self-reflection can also make it harder to recognise when boundaries might be shifting.
Vicarious Trauma
We cannot talk about stress and burnout without also discussing vicarious trauma.
Vicarious trauma, also known as secondary trauma, or secondary traumatic stress, refers to the emotional and psychological impact of repeatedly hearing about, or working with, individuals who have experienced significant trauma.
Vicarious trauma can build up over time through ongoing exposure to others’ traumatic stories. The individual may internalise the trauma of those they serve, which can lead to changes in their worldview, empathy, and emotional wellbeing.
Symptoms of vicarious can be similar to post-traumatic stress disorder. They can include Intrusive thoughts, emotional numbing or detachment, difficulty sleeping, feelings of helplessness or hopelessness, and changes in personal beliefs about the self, others, and the world.
Burnout and Compassion Fatigue
Burnout and compassion fatigue can be linked to vicarious trauma. However, they are different conditions that can affect people in different ways.
Burnout can arise from chronic workplace stress, but not necessarily from prolonged exposure to second-hand trauma.
Some people use the term “compassion fatigue” interchangeably with vicarious trauma. However, “compassion fatigue” relates to a broader sense of emotional exhaustion that can arise from caregiving roles. This condition is not solely related to trauma.
Vicarious trauma is a process of significant psychological transformation that can result from long-term compassionate engagement with individuals who have experienced trauma. Given the significant impact this condition can have on an employee or volunteer’s wellbeing, recognising and supporting vicarious trauma in the workplace is crucial for maintaining healthy professional boundaries.
What Can You Do To Maintain Professional Boundaries in Challenging Roles?
So how can you maintain healthy professional boundaries when working in emotionally challenging roles?
Adapting healthy coping mechanisms and balance is key in maintaining effective boundaries. This can include taking regular breaks, exercising, and creating conditions for a good rest, such as refusing to look at your phone at certain times. Specialist training on trauma-informed and reflective practice would also help.
These mechanisms can help increase confidence, empathy, and self-belief on an individual level. But it is also important to consider the role your colleagues can play in supporting your wellbeing and resilience. In short, you should look out for your colleagues, and your colleagues should look out for you.
What Can Organisations Do To Help Maintain Professional Boundaries?
There are many things organisations can do to help their staff and volunteers maintain healthy professional boundaries:
- Work to create a culture that welcomes concerns and healthy discussions around boundaries. This can include providing clear guidance in the forms of codes of conduct and other related policies.
- Allow staff and volunteers to prioritise their health and wellbeing. This can include balanced caseloads, flexible working conditions, and providing plenty of opportunities for feedback and ongoing development.
- Provide opportunities for colleagues to come together to learn from each other. These gatherings should be safe spaces for staff and volunteers to discuss difficult subject matter without judgement. But it’s also an opportunity to build resilience, optimism, and hope through building effective peer support networks.
- Highlight the importance of reflective practice. This involves encouraging staff and volunteers to reflect on their actions as part of a process of continuous learning. It can involve deliberate investigations into professional practices to gain a greater understanding of what’s going well, along with any possible areas of improvement. This can take place in either a one-to-one or in a peer group setting.
Self-Disclosure – When is This OK?
Self-disclosure refers to situations when professionals reveal something personal to the person they are supporting. They might choose to discuss a situation they have themselves experienced, or share a personal detail they feel is relevant to the interaction. This can be a useful tool for building trust, for breaking down power differentials, for increasing empathy, and for encouraging openness and connection.
But when it comes to self-disclosure, it’s important to pause and reflect on what is being disclosed, and why. Some like to consider the “zone of helpfulness”. If the self-disclosure will bring little of value to the professional relationship, then it may be wiser to refrain from disclosing.
It is also important to pay attention to an individual’s reactions. If the person you’re supporting retreats, closes down, or appears concerned with your disclosure, then it may be better to refrain from disclosing anything else.
Remember if you feel that it is necessary to self-disclose, keep it short, succinct, and relevant to the point you’re discussing.
Technology and Professional Boundaries
Your organisation should have clear policies on what sort of interactions are appropriate for every available tech. These policies should also encourage a healthy attitude towards how staff and volunteers use technology, both in and out of the workplace.
All work devices should be switched off and kept out of sight on non-working days, and during breaks. Staff and volunteers should make use of auto-responses and “do not disturb” settings to protect their time.
It can be difficult to enforce such boundaries in emotionally challenging roles. If you’re working in such a role, you should remember that you alone cannot solve an individual’s issue. Even in an emergency situation, there will be professionals and services who can offer additional support. Out of hours, it can be enough to automatically signpost the people you’re supporting to emergency services. Or, you can outline a safety plan with the person you’re supporting at the start of their involvement, making it clear that you may not be the best port of call in an emergency.
Professional Boundaries Are Not Barriers
Building effective professional boundaries does not mean you’re putting up barriers between yourself, your colleagues, and the people you support. They’re all about building respect and trust.
Professional boundaries can help you bring your best self to work, while honouring your own wellbeing, along with the welfare of everyone around you.
Be clear and intentional about your interactions and your expectations, and you can build a more sustainable, respectful, and productive working culture that will ultimately deliver more positive outcomes for the people you support.
Specialist Professional Boundaries Training
If you’d like to learn more, we’re running specialist online safeguarding training focused on establishing and maintaining professional boundaries.
In this session we will explore what professional boundaries are and how they can be implemented. We will also discuss the benefits professional boundaries can bring, the challenges of implementing them, and the impact of not having clear boundaries in place.
Date: Thursday 18 September
Time: 10.00 am – 1.00 pm
Location: Online
Price: £89 per person