Customer Reviews

At Personal Risk: Boundary Violations in Professional-Client Relationships

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Marilyn Peterson's book "At Personal Risk Boundary Violations in Professional-Client Relationships" offers a concise report on the professional-client relationship highlighting the "ethos of care" involved in the relationship professionals have with the clients they help.

Ms. Peterson gives many examples of harm caused to clients when the boundary of this trust based relationship is breached. She has a particularly good discussion of the power differential involved in the professional-client relationship and how denial of the power and influence which reside with the professional can lead to boundary violations. She discusses four often hidden aspects involved in boundary violations: role reversals; secrets; double binds and indulgence of personal priviledge.

Her discussion of the tensions that professionals must hold and work within show a keen understanding and insight into the responsibilities and risks of professional fiduciary work.

She summarizes the psychological wounds to victims and offers suggestions for healing.

Having read many books on the topic of professional boundaries and their abuses, I have found this book to be one of the best. Ms. Peterson writes in a clear, straight-forward manner and provides valuable discussion and thought provoking insight without psychobable jargon.

Peterson's book is a treatise on the issue of boundaries and ethics in the helper/client relationship. She gives excellent examples of the ways clients have been hurt by professionals who don't have clear boundaries. The range of professions include medicine, education, law, religion, and counselling. I too found her discussion of boundary violations highly enlightening. She is extremely clear in describing what a boundary violation is, and how to deal with them when they occur. Clients who have been on the receiving end of boundary violations and abuses of professional power are likely to find her empathetic and insightful. The book is highly readable and thought provoking. I believe this book should be required reading for teachers, doctors, counsellors, lawyers, and others in the helping professions.

Ms. Peterson's book is an excellent help for the professional in understanding boundary violations. Do not let the talk about the sacred charge of the professional turn you off; her perspective in writing about it is anthropological rather than religious.

This book is really only for the professional, not for the client who has been violated. There are other, better books for that need.

I was fortunate enough to have read this book when it first came out as I was beginning my practice. Now as a faculty member I have used this book for a number of graduate clinical courses over the last eleven years. Peterson is insightful in her analysis of the fiduciary relationship between therapist and client. This approach is especially needed in the current climate of the recovery model of mental illness. Students far too easily adapt a client/friend/coach attitude and become unaware of the inherent imbalance of power that cannot be ignored in helping relationships. As someone who has given testimony to governing boards concerning therapist boundary violations I believe that At Personal Risk gives students an excellent theoretical ground from which to build healthy practice ethics and guidelines.

I have been a victim of abuse from a therapist and this book helped me understand abuse and harm in professional relationships within a bigger cultural context while also providing clarity on interpersonal dynamic between a professional and a client and their individual dynamics. In fact, the author's thoughts on the subject paralleled my own a lot, so it felt good to receive validation of my ideas and see them so well articulated and organized. This book is a must to read for all professionals that are in a position of power in relation to their clients and for their clients as well. Out of all the books I have read on this subject this one is by far gives the most comprehensive review of the issue.

My one issue with this book is that it tacitly discourages formal legal complaints or action by emphasizing the need for continued discussion/rapprochement between therapist and client, "not revenge"; a frequent refrain is on "healing the relationship" between therapist and client. For clients struggling with egregious or very hamrful boundary violations, this book would be inappropriately and subtly persuasive that they should keep working with a troubled therapist.

A friend recommended this book to me to help increase my feelings of self awareness in a more violent society. While it does contain some useful information, I think that it tends to present the idea that one needs to be overly suspicious to be safe. To me, there is a different between awareness and paranoia. I would not recommend this book.