Commentary on Steven H. Cooper’s Paper “Blurring Boundaries or Why Do We Refer to Sexual Misconduct With Patients as ‘Boundary Violation’”

Abstract

In this commentary on Steven H. Cooper’s paper, the author acknowledges that the term boundary violation presents a vexing problem when we try to integrate it with the traditional use of the term boundary in psychoanalytic thought. He suggests that the two discourses represent two separate but somewhat related levels of discourse and that overlap occurs in some areas but not in others. While the use of “boundary violations” to describe ethical misconduct presents problems, the author suggests that it may be useful for some analysts who have experienced a collapse of analytic space and can no longer “play” in a symbolic realm. He also suggests that we may be stuck with the term because of the unconscious function it serves for the analytic community.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Glen O. Gabbard

Glen O. Gabbard, M.D., is Training and Supervising Analyst at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Houston, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine, and author of Boundaries and Boundary Violations in Psychoanalysis: The Second Edition.