Personal boundaries

Personal boundaries or the act of setting boundaries is a life skill that has been popularized by self help authors and support groups since the mid-1980s. Personal boundaries are established by changing one's own response to interpersonal situations, rather than expecting other people to change their behaviors to comply with your boundary. ^[1] For example, if the boundary is to not interact with a particular person, then one sets a boundary by deciding not to see or engage with that person, and one enforces the boundary by politely declining invitations to events that include that person and by politely leaving the room if that person arrives unexpectedly. The boundary is thus respected without requiring the assistance or cooperation of any other people. ^[1] Setting a boundary is different from making a request. ^[2] Setting a boundary is also different from issuing an ultimatum. ^[3]

The concept of boundaries has been widely adopted by the counseling profession. ^[4] Universal applicability of the concept has been questioned. ^[5]

Concept

A boundary is a rule that affects the behavior of the person who choose to make the rule. ^[6] The point of a boundary is to control one's own reaction, rather than controlling other people's behavior. ^[6]

Author and therapist K. C. Davis says "boundaries are an internal understanding of where I end and where you begin. It’s where my feelings end and your feelings begin. It’s where my ability to affect my own decisions and actions end, and your decisions and actions begin." ^[2]

Setting boundaries does not always require telling anyone what the boundary is or what the consequences are for transgressing it. ^[7] For example, if a person decides to leave an unwanted discussion, that person may give an unrelated excuse, such as claiming that it is time to do something else, rather than saying that the subject must not be mentioned.

Usage and application

Setting and enforcing boundaries is usually emotionally uncomfortable and requires effort from the person setting the boundary. ^[1]

Co-Dependents Anonymous recommends setting limits on what members will do to and for people and on what members will allow people to do to and for them, as part of their efforts to establish autonomy from being controlled by other people's thoughts, feelings and problems. ^[8]

The National Alliance on Mental Illness tells its members that establishing and maintaining values and boundaries will improve the sense of security, stability, predictability and order, in a family even when some members of the family resist. NAMI contends that boundaries encourage a more relaxed, nonjudgmental atmosphere and that the presence of boundaries need not conflict with the need for maintaining an understanding atmosphere. ^[9]

Examples of boundaries and other responses

Situation	Response	Category
Someone drops by without an invitation or notice.	Telling the person that they have to stop coming over unannounced [6]	Request for the other person to change
	Not opening the door or letting the uninvited guest inside	Personal boundary
Someone regularly discusses a sensitive subject.	Asking the person to not bring up that subject [6]	Request for the other person to change
	Silently resolving not to let that person's view of the subject affect one's own values, beliefs, or thoughts [6]	Personal boundary
	Changing the subject to a mutually acceptable subject [6]	Personal boundary
	Not answering the phone if the person calls [1]	Personal boundary
Someone is communicating in a disrespectful manner.	Saying "Don’t talk to me that way" [6]	Request for the other person to change
	Ignoring a disrespectful message [6]	Personal boundary
	Ending the conversation, with an invitation to continue it another time [6]	Personal boundary
Someone frequently cancels plans at the last minute.	Avoiding making plans in advance with this person [6]	Personal boundary
A stressful work situation bleeds into family and home life (or the other way around).	Naming what is happening (e.g., "I am still upset about it, even though I want to leave that problem at work") and making an effort to refocus on the immediate task or situation [10]	Personal boundary
	Using a physical ritual to help mentally separate work time from home time (e.g., taking a shower, putting on a uniform) [10]	Personal boundary

Process

Boundary setting is the practice of openly communicating and asserting personal values as way to preserve and protect against having them compromised or violated. ^[3] The three critical aspects of managing personal boundaries are: ^[3]

• Defining values: A healthy relationship is an “inter-dependent” relationship of two “independent” people. Healthy individuals should establish values that they honor and defend regardless of the nature of a relationship (core or independent values). Healthy individuals should also have values that they negotiate and adapt in an effort to bond with and collaborate with others (inter-dependent values). ^[3]
• Asserting boundaries: In this model, individuals use verbal and nonverbal communications to assert intentions, preferences and define what is inbounds and out-of-bounds with respect to their core or independent values. ^[11] When asserting values and boundaries, communications should be present, appropriate, clear, firm, protective, flexible, receptive, and collaborative. ^[12]
• Honoring and defending: Making decisions consistent with the personal values when presented with life choices or confronted or challenged by controlling people or people not taking responsibility for their own life. ^[3] In a dysfunctional relationship, respecting one's own boundaries by honoring and defending them often provokes unwanted and uncomfortable responses from the people who are crossing the boundary lines. ^[1] They may respond with disapproval, shame, resentment, pressure not to change the relationship, or other behaviors designed to restore the familiar old behavior patterns. ^[1]

Having healthy values and boundaries is a lifestyle, not a quick fix to a relationship dispute. ^[3]

Values are constructed from a mix of conclusions, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, past experiences and social learning. ^{[13] [14]} Jacques Lacan considers values to be layered in a hierarchy, reflecting “all the successive envelopes of the biological and social status of the person” ^[15] from the most primitive to the most advanced.

Personal values and boundaries operate in two directions, affecting both the incoming and outgoing interactions between people. ^[16] These are sometimes referred to as the 'protection' and 'containment' functions. ^[7]

Scope

The three most commonly mentioned categories of values and boundaries are:

• Physical – Personal space and touch considerations; ^{[17] [18] [19]} physical intimacy
• Mental – Thoughts and opinions ^{[17] [18] [19]}
• Emotional – Feelings; emotional intimacy

Some authors have expanded this list with additional or specialized categories such as spirituality, ^{[17] [19]} truth, ^[19] and time/punctuality. ^[20]

Assertiveness levels

Nina Brown proposed four boundary types: ^[21]

• Soft – A person with soft boundaries merges with other people's boundaries. Someone with a soft boundary is easily a victim of psychological manipulation.
• Spongy – A person with spongy boundaries is like a combination of having soft and rigid boundaries. They permit less emotional contagion than soft boundaries but more than those with rigid. People with spongy boundaries are unsure of what to let in and what to keep out.
• Rigid – A person with rigid boundaries is closed or walled off so nobody can get close either physically or emotionally. This is often the case if someone has been the victim of physical, emotional, psychological, or sexual abuse. Rigid boundaries can be selective which depend on time, place or circumstances and are usually based on a bad previous experience in a similar situation.
• Flexible – Similar to spongy rigid boundaries but the person exercises more control. The person decides what to let in and what to keep out, is resistant to emotional contagion and psychological manipulation, and is difficult to exploit.

Unilateral vs collaborative

There are also two main ways that boundaries are set: ^[7]

• Unilateral boundaries – One person decides to impose a standard on the relationship, regardless of whether others support it. For example, one person may decide to never mention an unwanted subject and to make a habit of leaving the room, ending phone calls, or deleting messages without replying if the subject is mentioned by others. ^[7]
• Collaborative boundaries – Everyone in the relationship group agrees, either tacitly or explicitly, that a particular standard should be upheld. For example, the group may decide not to discuss an unwanted subject, and then all members individually avoid mentioning it and work together to change the subject if someone mentions it. ^[7]

Situations that can challenge personal boundaries

Communal influences

Freud described the loss of conscious boundaries that may occur when an individual is in a unified, fast-moving crowd. ^[22]

Almost a century later, Steven Pinker took up the theme of the loss of personal boundaries in a communal experience, noting that such occurrences could be triggered by intense shared ordeals like hunger, fear or pain, and that such methods were traditionally used to create liminal conditions in initiation rites. ^[23] Jung had described this as the absorption of identity into the collective unconscious. ^[24]

Rave culture has also been said to involve a dissolution of personal boundaries, and a merger into a binding sense of communality. ^[25]

Unequal power relationships

Also unequal relations of political and social power influence the possibilities for marking cultural boundaries and more generally the quality of life of individuals. ^[26] Unequal power in personal relationships, including abusive relationships, can make it difficult for individuals to mark boundaries.

Dysfunctional families

This life skill is particularly applicable in environments with controlling people or people not taking responsibility for their own lives. ^[27]

• Overly demanding parents In the dysfunctional family the child learns to become attuned to the parent's needs and feelings instead of the other way around. ^[28]
• Overly demanding children Parenting is a role that requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice and giving a child's needs a high priority. A parent can, nevertheless, be codependent towards a child if the caretaking or parental sacrifice reaches unhealthy or destructive levels. ^[29]
• Codependent relationships Codependency often involves placing a lower priority on one's own needs, while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others. Codependency can occur in any type of relationship, including family, work, friendship, and also romantic, peer or community relationships. ^[30] While a healthy relationship depends on the emotional space provided by personal boundaries, ^[31] codependent personalities have difficulties in setting such limits, so that defining and protecting boundaries efficiently may be for them a vital part of regaining mental health. ^[32] In a codependent relationship, the codependent's sense of purpose is based on making extreme sacrifices to satisfy their partner's needs. Codependent relationships signify a degree of unhealthy clinginess, where one person does not have self-sufficiency or autonomy. One or both parties depend on the other for fulfilment. ^[33] There is usually an unconscious reason for continuing to put another person's life first — often the mistaken notion that self-worth comes from other people.

• Mental illness in the family People with certain mental conditions are predisposed to controlling behavior including those with obsessive compulsive disorder, paranoid personality disorder, ^[34] borderline personality disorder, ^[35] and narcissistic personality disorder, ^[36] attention deficit disorder, ^[37] and the manic state of bipolar disorder. ^[37]
• Borderline personality disorder (BPD): There is a tendency for loved ones of people with BPD to slip into caretaker roles, giving priority and focus to problems in the life of the person with BPD rather than to issues in their own lives. Too often in these relationships, the codependent will gain a sense of worth by being "the sane one" or "the responsible one". ^[38] Often, this shows up prominently in families with strong Asian cultures because of beliefs tied to the cultures. ^[39]
• Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD): For those involved with a person with NPD, values and boundaries are often challenged as narcissists have a poor sense of self and often do not recognize that others are fully separate and not extensions of themselves. Those who meet their needs and those who provide gratification may be treated as if they are part of the narcissist and expected to live up to their expectations. ^[40]

See also

• Bodily integrity
• Boundaries of the mind
• Comfort zone
• Symbolic boundaries

References

1. Pearson, Catherine (8 March 2023). "How to Set Boundaries With a Difficult Family Member". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 12 March 2023.
2. Martin, Anna; Goldberg, Reva; Lang, Emily; Land, Davis; Djossa, Christina; Pearl, Amy; Curtis, Sara; Poyant, Jen; Levy, Lynn (23 April 2025). "You're Probably Thinking About Boundaries All Wrong". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 29 April 2025. Asking your mom not to talk to you about weight in and of itself is not a boundary, it's just a request.
3. Johnson, R. Skip. "Setting Boundaries and Setting Limits". BPDFamily.com . Retrieved 10 June 2014.
4. G. B. and J. S. Lundberg, I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better (2000) p. 13. ISBN 978-0-670-88485-8
5. Scherlis, Lily (14 July 2023). "Boundaries are suddenly everywhere. What does the squishy term actually mean?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 31 July 2023. ...the basic concept has received shockingly little critical attention
6. Caron, Christina (18 September 2025). "Setting Boundaries Doesn't Mean What You Think". The New York Times . Retrieved 21 September 2025.
7. Graham, Michael C. (2014). Facts of Life: ten issues of contentment. Outskirts Press. p. 159. ISBN   978-1-4787-2259-5.
8. Setting Boundaries: Meditations for Codependents (Moment to Reflect). Harpercollins. August 1995. ISBN   9780062554017.
9. Bayes, Kathy. "Setting Boundaries In A Marriage Complicated By Mental Illness". National Alliance on Mental Illness.
10. Hersh, Matthew A. (2022), "Supportive connections and healthy boundaries.", The thriving therapist: Sustainable self-care to prevent burnout and enhance well-being., Washington: American Psychological Association, pp. 331–341, doi:10.1037/0000309-030, ISBN   978-1-4338-3784-5 , retrieved 21 September 2025
11. Richmond PhD, Raymond Lloyd. "Boundaries". A Guide to Psychology and its Practice. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
12. Whitfield, Charles L. (2010). Boundaries and Relationships: Knowing, Protecting and Enjoying the Self (2 ed.). HCI Books. p. 121. ISBN   978-1558742598.
13. Graham, Michael C. (2014). Facts of Life: ten issues of contentment. Outskirts Press. ISBN   978-1-4787-2259-5.
14. Vanessa Rogers, Working with Young Men (2010) p. 80
15. Jacques Lacan, Ecrits (1997) p. 16-7
16. Katherine, Anne Where to Draw the Line: How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day 2000
17. Whitfield, Charles L. (2010). Boundaries and Relationships: Knowing, Protecting and Enjoying the Self (2 ed.). HCI Books. ISBN   978-1-55874-259-8.
18. Katherine, Anne (1994). Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin. Hazelden. p. 5. ISBN   978-1-56838-030-8.
19. Townsend, John; Cloud, Henry (1 November 1992). Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. Nashville: HarperCollins Christian Publishing. p. 245. ISBN   978-0-310-58590-9.
20. Katherine, Anne (2000). Where to Draw the Line: How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day . Simon and Schuster. pp.  16–25. ISBN   9780684868066.
21. Brown, Nina W. (2006). Coping With Infuriating, Mean, Critical People – The Destructive Narcissistic Pattern. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN   978-0-275-98984-2.
22. Freud, Sigmund. "Le Bon's Description of the Group Mind". Civilization, Society and Religion (PFL 12): 98–109.
23. Pinker, Steven (2007). The Stuff of Thought . Penguin. p.  403. ISBN   9780670063277.
24. Jung, Carl Gustav (15 August 1968). Man and His Symbols. Dell. p. 123. ISBN   978-0-440-35183-2.
25. Jones, Carole (10 September 2009). Disappearing Men: Gender Disorientation in Scottish Fiction 1979–1999 (Scroll: Scottish Cultural Review of Language and Literature) (Book 12). Rodopi. p. 176. ISBN   978-9042026988.
26. Baillie, Colin P. T. (2012). "Power Relations and its Influence in the Sphere of Globalization since World War II". Journal of Anthropology. 20 (1). Retrieved 31 March 2016.
27. John Townsend; Henry Cloud (1 November 1992). Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. Nashville: HarperCollins Christian Publishing. p. 245. ISBN   9780310585909.
28. Lancer, Darlene (2014). Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You. Minnesota: Hazelden. pp. 63–65. ISBN   978-1-61649-533-6.
29. Codependents Anonymous: Patterns and Characteristics Archived 2013-08-24 at the Wayback Machine
30. "Patterns and Characteristics of Codependence". coda.org. Co-Dependents Anonymous. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
31. Casement, Patrick (1990). Further Learning from the Patient. London. p. 160.
32. Weinhold, Barry; Weinhold, Janae (28 January 2008). Breaking Free of the Co-Dependency Trap (Second ed.). Novato: New World Library. pp. 192, 198. ISBN   978-1-57731-614-5.
33. Wetzler, Scott. "Psychology division chief at Albert Einstein College of Medicine". WebMD. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
34. Goldberg, Joseph (23 May 2014). "Paranoid Personality Disorder" . Retrieved 20 October 2014.
35. Braiker, Harriet B. (2006). Who's Pulling Your Strings? How to Break The Cycle of Manipulation.
36. Brown, Nina (1 April 2008). Children of the Self-Absorbed: A Grown-Up's Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents (Second ed.). New Harbinger Publications. p. 35. ISBN   978-1-57224-561-7.
37. Cermak, Timmen L. (1986). "Diagnostic Criteria for Codependency". Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. 18 (1): 15–20. doi:10.1080/02791072.1986.10524475. PMID   3701499.
38. Danielle, Alicia (7 June 2012). "Codependency and Borderline Personality Disorder: How to Spot It". Clearview Women's Center. Archived from the original on 7 December 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
39. Hong, Soo Jung (2018). "Gendered Cultural Identities: The Influences of Family and Privacy Boundaries, Subjective Norms, and Stigma Beliefs on Family Health History Communication". Health Communication. 33 (8): 927–938. doi:10.1080/10410236.2017.1322480. ISSN   1041-0236. PMID   28541817. S2CID   26967012.
40. Hotchkiss, Sandra, LCSW (7 August 2003). Why Is It Always About You? (Chapter 7). New York: Free Press. ISBN   978-0-7432-1428-5.

Further reading

• Cloud, Henry; Townsend, John (1992). Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No . Thomas Nelson Publishing. ISBN   978-0-310-24745-6.
• Bottke, Allison (2008). Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children. Harvest House Publishers. ISBN   978-0-7369-2135-0.
• Katherine, Anne (1994). Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin. Hazelden. ISBN   978-1-56838-030-8.
• Whitfield, Charles (1994). Boundaries and Relationships. HCI Books. ISBN   978-1-55874-259-8.
• Hawkins, David (2007). Setting Boundaries on Unhealthy Relationships. Harvest House Publishers. ISBN   978-0-7369-1841-1.