Healthy Boundaries in Therapy
Understand the importance of boundaries to foster a safe therapeutic space
Therapy should feel like a safe and steady place—somewhere you can take your emotional shoes off without worrying you’ll be judged, pushed, or confused. That sense of safety is created through clear, respectful boundaries.
But boundaries can be hard to spot, especially if you’ve had experiences—whether in relationships or therapy—where your limits haven’t been respected. This page will walk you through what healthy boundaries actually look like in therapy, what happens when they’re missing, and why they matter so much.
🌱Why Boundaries Matter
Boundaries aren’t rules designed to control you—they’re agreements that help create emotional safety. In therapy, they protect your right to go at your own pace, say no, ask questions, and show up without fear.
From a Cognizance perspective, boundaries also make it clear that you are just as important as your therapist. You deserve to be treated with respect, have your autonomy recognised, and be supported in building independence—not dependency.
Creating Safety
Boundaries establish a secure space for open communication.
Building Trust
Clear limits help foster mutual respect and reliability.
Encouraging Growth
Healthy boundaries empower clients to heal and progress.
Maintaining Respect
Boundaries ensure a respectful and professional relationship.
Adrian Yates
✅What Healthy Boundaries Usually Include
Across most therapeutic approaches, there are some universally recommended boundary practices. These help define the roles in therapy and keep the space supportive and safe:
1. Clear Timekeeping
- Sessions start and end on time.
- If your therapist is regularly running late, overrunning without discussion, or abruptly ending without closure, something’s off.
2. Confidentiality
- What you say in therapy stays in therapy—except in cases where safety is at risk (e.g., harm to self or others).
- Your therapist should explain this clearly and revisit it if you ask.
3. No Dual Relationships
- Therapists should not be your friend, business partner, or anything else outside the therapy room.
- Mixing roles creates confusion and blurs the power dynamic in unsafe ways.
4. Professional Communication
- Contact outside of sessions should be minimal, respectful, and clear.
- A therapist shouldn’t text you late at night, share personal problems, or emotionally lean on you.
5. Financial Clarity and Fairness
- Payment terms should be transparent, not punitive.
- In Cognizance therapy, we believe advance payments and missed-session charges often create an unhealthy power imbalance.
⚠️ When Boundaries Get Crossed
Sometimes, boundary issues are easy to spot. But often, they show up quietly. You might feel uncomfortable, confused, or even guilty—and not realise that a line has been crossed.
Examples of Therapists Breaking Boundaries
- Sharing personal struggles in detail to “relate” to you
- Asking you to keep secrets or lie for them
- Suggesting contact outside sessions that feels too intimate or inappropriate
- Pressuring you to keep attending therapy when you’ve expressed a desire to pause or stop
- Using guilt to get you to pay or continue sessions
Examples of Therapists Allowing Clients to Cross Boundaries (Without Correction)
- Letting a client text or call at all hours without setting limits
- Allowing regular session overruns that are never discussed
- Letting flirtatious or overly familiar behaviour slide without gentle redirection
- Accepting gifts that go beyond a simple token of thanks
- Failing to address when the client becomes overly emotionally reliant on them
When a therapist doesn’t model or maintain boundaries, it can leave clients confused or unsafe—especially those recovering from trauma, people-pleasing, or codependency. Sometimes, clients test boundaries not out of disrespect, but because they’re seeking structure or safety.
And if that boundary isn’t gently upheld, the therapy space can start to feel unpredictable or even unsafe.
🌱The Cognizance View on Boundaries
In Cognizance-informed therapy, healthy boundaries are core to everything:
- Clients are seen as equals—not subordinates.
- Payments are made after sessions, not before.
- First sessions are free so you can decide without pressure.
- Missed sessions aren’t charged automatically—life happens.
- The pace is set by you, not enforced by a structured plan.
We believe a boundary should never be used as a tool of control. It’s a point of clarity and mutual respect.
🔍 How to Spot Unhealthy Boundaries
Ask yourself:
- Do I feel like I have space to speak up?
- Am I ever afraid to say no?
- Do I feel emotionally responsible for my therapist?
- Is anything happening that I wouldn’t feel okay telling a friend about?
If you’re answering yes to any of those, it might be time to reflect on whether the relationship feels as safe and grounded as it should.
🧭 Final Thought
Healthy boundaries make therapy work. They create the structure you need to go deep, to explore, and to grow. Without them, therapy becomes confusing at best—and retraumatising at worst.
You deserve to feel safe. You deserve to feel respected. And you have the right to ask for boundaries to be set—or respected—at any time.
This view is rooted in my personal experience as a therapist working within the Cognizance Therapeutic Principle. It may differ from more traditional or mainstream approaches, especially around things like advance payments and missed-session policies. But from where I stand, good therapy begins with trust—and trust begins with clear, kind, human boundaries.
You matter. Your voice matters. And how you’re treated in therapy should always reflect that.
Boundaries in action
More about the importance of boundaries
Holding therapists accountable
Therapy should be a space where you feel safe, respected, and genuinely supported.
🚩Red Flags in Therapy
warning signs of harmful therapist behaviors.Learn how to spot bad therapy
🌱Benefits of Healthy Boundaries
See how boundaries enhance respect, support, and meaningful therapeutic relationships.