June Membership Meeting Write-Up — Shawn LaRé Brinkley, MS, LMFT

A Dance with Boundaries:
Understanding the Top Ethical Challenges in Clinical Practice

Presented by Latasha Matthews, LPC, CPCS

As therapists, one would think boundaries would be a topic we all have "in the bag." However, our June speaker provided rich practical insights that offered an opportunity for those in attendance to do an overhaul to make sure we were taking the proper precautions to maintain, or in some cases, adopt appropriate boundaries. Latasha Matthews, LPC, CPCS, of Illumination Counseling and Coaching in Lawrenceville, Georgia, approached boundaries from a fresh, informative, and thought-provoking angle. In addition to her work as a clinician, Latasha, also known as America’s Wellness Expert, has been involved in various aspects of mental health and wellness over the years. Her work has taken her on adventures as a podcast/TV personality, professor, business consultant/coach, author/columnist, trainer/speaker, non-profit co-founder, and legal consultant. Prior to becoming a therapist, Latasha served as a human resources trainer for over 12 years and credits much of what she has learned in the area of boundaries, ethical, and legal matters from her work there along with mistakes she has made along the way.

The title of Matthew’s presentation was “A Dance with Boundaries: Understanding the Top Ethical Challenges in Clinical Practice. Latasha began the dance with a simple two-step: defining our role as clinicians and identifying the top challenges we face in those roles every day. She first cleverly listed roles that many of us may have mis-stepped into such as “being a robot (rigid) so as to not contaminate the process; teaching our clients proper behavior, being a guru, sharing our infinite wisdom, or reflecting and clarifying without any direction.” How many of us have found ourselves on this side of the dance floor instead of dancing on the side designated for our profession, which were identified as “teaching/guiding, gatekeeping, practicing wellness, professional development, and protecting clients and ourselves.”

This alone opened the door for self-reflection as it is all too easy to morph into a fixer rather than as “space-holder” or container for our clients. I quickly was reminded that the therapeutic process is not about us clinicians and how much we know and how we can use that knowledge to whip our clients into shape. It is, in fact, quite the opposite. Our job is to be certain we are living in wellness so that we can be what/who we need to be for our clients. Who knew this was about boundaries? We continued the dance. Apparently, I like this metaphor of a dance, so please bear with me as I continue the choreography.

Moving on to the bar, (not that bar—the ballet bar) Latasha, provided information about the meaning of ethics: honesty, integrity, and values. She then twirled around the basic moral principles of ethical behavior, which she named as autonomy, beneficence, non-malfeasance, justice, fidelity, and veracity. After discussing the levels of ethical practice: principle, virtue, mandatory, and aspirational ethics, Matthews showed us how the pieces all fit together to create healthy boundaries.

Our goal as suggested in the presentations is to create: 1) a framework for helper-client relationship; 2) a safe and professional environment for the client; 3) parameters to deliver helping services; and 4) a line between self of client and self of professional helper. Included in this comprehensive presentation was discussion about informed consent, vulnerabilities of boundary violations, the challenges we have as clinicians maintaining safe and clear boundaries, being a self-aware supervisor, and ethical decision-making. Latasha provided vignettes of case studies to make the dance come alive and help us put into practice the steps we had mastered thus far.

The dance with boundaries wound down with a slow dance covering a few more pertinent areas before we practiced for the grand finale, discussing our own boundary violations and those ultimate last steps, helping us to see ways we might improve our dance moves by making healthy, ethical decisions as we salsa to the ethical beat in the dance with boundaries.

Shawn LaRé Brinkley, LMFT is the Owner/Executive Clinical Director of her private group practice, Living Loved Pathways to Holistic Healing, recently moving from sole-proprietor to a C-corporation. She supervises pre-licensed therapists and enjoys that aspect of the work. Shawn LaRé can be reached at 818.285.8037; info@livinglovedhealing.org. The website is www.livinglovedhealing.org.