Sexual Boundary Violations: Therapeutic, Supervisory, and Academic Contexts [Hardcover]

Andrea Celenza (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0765704714 | ISBN-13: 978-0765704719 | Edition: 1

Sexual boundary violations are considered the most series ethical infraction in the mental health profession, as well as in higher education and pastoral counseling. Recognized as unethical due to the power imbalance inherent in the structure of the therapist-patient and teacher-student dyads, erotic contact between therapists and patients has been revealed in prevalence studies to occur at an unacceptably high incidence rate (9 to 12 per cent) among mental health practitioners. There exist few programs, teaching methods, and preventative measures that adequately address the problem of sexual boundary violations, despite the fact that discussing this problem openly is no longer taboo. Sexual Boundary Violations addresses this gap, providing educators, trainers, and clinicians with a resource to aid in developing programs, ethics workshops, seminars, and other educative or clinical teaching projects.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Andrea Celenza is one of a handful of mental health professionals who has studied the problem of sexual boundary violations in the helping professions. Where others speculate, she brings years of clinical experience to bear on the subject. The result is a highly informative and comprehensive overview of the causes, consequences and casualties of sexual boundary violations. She maintains a humane perspective and offers valuable strategies for rehabilitation and treatment. All mental health professionals would be wise to spend some time with this superb new book. (Glen O. Gabbard, M.D. )

An outstanding book that belongs in every therapy training program, but not just to help the trainees. It is a humanely and well-written reminder of our own vulnerability and the unjustified, moralistic attitudes that keep more people from seeking help when they are losing control. (Psyccritiques )

Dr. Celenza holds the various phenomena involved in sexual boundary violations by therapists and clergy to a multi-faceted lens of clinical psychoanalysis, supervisory consultation, psychological testing, empirical research, ethics, law--and that metapsychologically elusive human attribute called decency. She extends and deepens the existing knowledge in this realm while introducing many intriguing and useful novel concepts of her own. Avoiding the pitfalls of sentimentality and moralizing, Celenza unmasks the ubiquitous vulnerability to such transgressions and the profound damage caused by them. She delineates ameliorative and preventive strategies aimed at minimizing such betrayals. Unerringly compassionate in its approach, Celenza's work is a shining tribute to the essential humanity at the heart of the psychotherapeutic enterprise. (Akhtar, Salman, M.D. )

Sexual Boundary Violations is an essential text for the mental health field and should become required reading for therapists, analysts, teachers, and clergy. I am sure that we will use it in our training program as part of the required course on professional ethics. Comprehensive, well organized, clearly written, with numerous and often gripping clinical illustrations, the book not only reviews the literature but provides practical and helpful guidance for clinicians and clergy as well as for those who teach and supervise them. (Lewis Aron, Ph.D. )

Andrea Celenza eloquently captures the damage--to themselves, their victims, their professions, and the wider social fabric--inflicted by professionals and clergy who transgress sexual boundaries. Her incisiveness about the non-negotiable need for sexual integrity is achieved, however, without unnecessarily demonizing those who cross lines that never should be crossed. Rather, she combines clarity tempered with compassion in addressing the characteristics of perpetrators. Most importantly, Celenza insists upon differentiating among transgressors. She challenges us to appreciate the unique humanity and circumstances of people many of us wish to lump together and dissociate from consciousness. She challenges us instead to hold in mind paradox and contradiction. This book is a vital component of continuing education and consciousness-raising for all of us who vow first to "do no harm." (Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, Ph.D. )

Sexual Boundary Violations is an outstanding book that belongs in every therapy training program, but not just to help the trainees. It is a humanely and well-written reminder of our own vulnerability and the unjustified, moralistic attitudes that keep more people from seeking help when they are losing control. Andrea Celenza writes and thinks clearly and explores her sensitive material in an evenhanded and matter-of-fact way. She manages to educate us about a moral dilemma while adeptly modeling and encouraging us to view even the gravest missteps with curiosity and compassion. (Psyccritiques/ Contemporary Psychology: Apa Review Of Books )

Her work spans training, consultation, supervisory, therapeutic, rehabilitation, and research contexts, and thus she is able to write from a position of highly specialized experience and expertise. (Psychologist-Psychoanalyst Division 39 Newsletter )

The author of this book notes at the outset that her book focuses on sexual boundary violations, but does so within the context of an examination of broader boundary issues. She observes that boundaries in the professional milieu facilitate the effectiveness if wirj and help protect the integrity of the relationship when there is a power differential, for example between a doctor and patient, employer and employee, or supervisor and student. Celenza reviews, with great scholarship, the literature on her subject.... The book is a valuable additino to the examinatino of sexual boundary violations and should form part of any study of ethical practice, as well as providing insight into the mindstuff of therapists who commit them. Recommended. (Metapsychology Online Reviews )

About the Author

Andrea Celenza, PhD, is an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School. She has authored and presented numerous papers on therapists who have engaged in sexual misconduct with a focus on training, supervisory, and rehabilitation issues. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Karl A. Menninger Memorial Award, the Felix & Helena Deutsch Prize, and the Symonds Prize. She is in private practice in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 22 and up
  
• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc.; 1 edition (June 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765704714
• ISBN-13: 978-0765704719
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #660,768 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why you better read this book, July 4, 2008

By 

Bryant L. Welch (Hilton Head Island, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sexual Boundary Violations: Therapeutic, Supervisory, and Academic Contexts (Hardcover)

As a psychologist-attorney, I have worked closely with many psychologists, licensing boards, and attorneys struggling with the complexities of boundary violations in psychotherapy. Naturally, the most destructive of these is patient-therapist sex.As we all know, the effect of such breaches of professional ethics can create a lifetime of suffering for patients, destroy the career and family of the perpetrating professional, and undermine public trust in the field of psychology.

In the cases I have seen, two recurring problems have emerged that I believe reflect gaps in our professional training on boundary violations and make it difficult for us to prevent these painful events. First, for many trainees sexual prohibitions are "learned" as a rule of ethical deportment rather than "understood" from a clinical perspective. It is striking to me how many members of the profession are unable to articulate the actual dynamics that make the alleged boundary violation so harmful. This is not a problem that is limited to the perpetrators. In some cases it has appeared to me that even some members of ethics committees and licensing boards have substituted a punitive application of sanctions to compensate for a limited clinical understanding of boundary violations.

Second, there is a widespread misperception that most, if not all, cases of patient therapist sex, because of how damaging they are, are perpetrated by exploitive psychopaths. In my experience this is not necessarily the case. Many psychologists get into trouble because they have not understood how good, decent people "just like us" can get into such trouble. This perception discourages trainees from discussing difficulties before they get out of hand with their supervisors and creates a costly illusion of safety for other psychologists who minimize the danger that this could happen to them.

I have often wished there were a good textbook that could succinctly help trainees and colleagues have the eye-opening experience some of these tragic cases have provided me. Dr. Andrea Celenza' book, Sexual Boundary Violations fills that void. It provides an extremely insightful portrayal of what I see happening in patient-therapist sex cases. Most importantly, it provides meaningful warning signs that can be used by clinicians to head off the cataclysmic effect of serious boundary violations.

Dr. Celenza's book gives professionals an in-depth understanding of what boundary violations are and what it is that actually makes them destructive. She also, through her empathic portrayals of her own treatment of perpetrators, shows how and why very good people--just like us-- can, indeed, if not properly prepared for the intimacies of therapy, lose their moorings and hurt their patients and themselves in ways from which neither will ever recover.

Any responsible clinician, clinical trainer, or member of any professional licensing board or ethics committee should read this book.

Bryant L. Welch, J.D., Ph.D.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important "must read" text, September 10, 2008

By 

Ellen Golding "booklover" (boston) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sexual Boundary Violations: Therapeutic, Supervisory, and Academic Contexts (Hardcover)

This is a comprehensive text on the many facets of sexual misconduct that will be useful to consumers of psychotherapy and practitioners alike. It is compassionate and scholarly; supportive on both sides and very informative. If psychotherapy is to survive and help people, it is a 'must read.'