Episode 5 – Reasons for Transgressions In Episode 5, Dr Wendy McIntosh PhD, from Davaar Consultancy recounts a Professional Boundaries scenario about a Police officer in a small town and the various events that led to his transgressions. You’ll hear how, in hindsight, it was clear that unresolved issues from his own history left him at risk of this particular boundary violation. Learn about how taking a candid look at our own history might give us hints about Red Flags warning us of likely vulnerabilities before problems transpire. Wendy also discusses Consistency or the lack of it, a particularly powerful Red Flag that usually deserves our immediate attention. This is the fifth part of a dialogue that be will be continued in the following episodes. Use the links above to subscribe, or click the play button to listen. There are 6 episodes planned in this first season of the Professional Boundaries Podcast and we hope you’ll be back to enjoy and learn from each of them. If you’ve ever wondered about your own boundaries in your Professional role, or been alerted about the risks of crossings or violations, this podcast will help you learn what to watch for, and ways to stay out the danger zones. Dr Wendy McIntosh welcomes both your interest and curiosity. Send Wendy questions at wendy@davaar.com.au or via Twitter, Instagram or Linked In In this podcast series, Dr Wendy McIntosh PhD shares insights and strategies about developing and maintaining professional boundaries. Professional Boundaries are not limited to the clinical or therapeutic arena. If you are in a professional role – a teacher, support worker, police officer, a prison officer, council worker, hairdresser. If you are a volunteer or belong to a theatre group, a choir, a sports club, there will be something in this podcast for you and the relationships you have with others. Setting boundaries in our life is necessary for our emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical well being. Setting boundaries is about our safety. Dr. Wendy McIntosh PhD Since 2005 Wendy has been developing her knowledge and interest in the area of professional boundaries. Wendy delivers workshops on boundaries in Australia (where she now lives) and Internationally when invited to do so. She is continually integrating learning and insights she gains from the work she does in professional boundaries. Wendy comes from a nursing, and predominately psychiatric nursing, background. Wendy consistently receives feedback on her passion, knowledge, and creativity as a presenter and facilitator. Enjoy exploring boundaries in this podcast series as Wendy takes you on your own reflective journey on your professional boundaries. References: Sir Walter Scott Quote – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12678303 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intrapsychic Thomas Gutheil, (1989). Borderline personality disorder, boundary violations and patient-therapist sex: Medico-legal pitfalls. American Journal of Psychiatry, 146, 597-602. The Drama Triangle – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_XSeUYa0-8 Recommended reading on Transference King, R.,& O’Brien. T. (2011). Transference and countertransference: Opportunities and risks as two technical constructs migrate beyond their psychoanalytic homeland. Psychotherapy in Australia, 17 (4), 12-17. Music clips in this podcast: “Lightless Dawn” by Kevin McLeod (Found at http://FreePD.com) & “Pond” by Rafael Kruz ((Found at http://FreePD.com Artist- https://www.orchestralis.net/) License: CC 0 BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) Transcript: Podcast Five – Reasons for transgressions According to Aristotle – “All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.” Scenario He was a police officer, recently graduated from the police academy. As a child, he had witnessed and experienced domestic violence from his father to his mother. As a young child, he wished that he could have done something to stop the violence. He had hopes that someday his father would have an accident, an injury or would die so that he never came home again. As a young officer he accepted a posting to a rural and remote area, he was glad to leave the city behind. Glad to leave his trauma behind. His father was no longer alive he had died whilst driving home one night under the influence of alcohol. He assessed that his mother would be ok without him being there, they had regular phone contact and he always felt reassured at the end of the phone calls. He was a few weeks into his positing and he was enjoying his new role. He was taking some time to establish a network of friends. He was the only officer in the village, his colleagues operated out of the main station which was 50 kilometres away. One night he received an emergency call to attend a domestic disturbance in the village. He knew the address, he had met the young woman who lived there and he liked her. He had heard through the village grapevine that her partner would beat her on a regular basis. The protocol was that he had to wait for other officers to arrive to assist him rather than go into such a situation on his own. He knew his colleagues would take some time to get there. There was protocol and there was his reaction. He did not wait. He drove to the house, jumped out of the car and as he entered the house, he announced who he was. Welcome to this Podcast series – Professional Boundaries, Your safety, your wellbeing. I am Wendy Mcintosh from Davaar Consultancy and I am delighted that you are joining me on another journey into the world of professional boundaries. This podcast series invites you to reflect on your Professional Boundaries and to appreciate how knowing the five foundation stones of boundaries can assist you in the everyday work that you do. This is our fifth episode. As I have stated in previous episodes I wanted the podcasts to be as interactive as possible and I been inviting listeners to email me any questions, scenarios or reflections they had about boundaries. I am delighted to say that I now have podcast listeners contacting me with scenarios they wish explored during an episode and two folks who have approached me to ask that we have an episode specifically on collegial boundaries. So thank you for that, we will build your themes into future episodes. Keep your questions, scenario, and reflections coming. Let us keep boundary discussions alive and robust. Contact details for ongoing discussions or questions with me are given at the end of this episode. I realised as I was thinking about content for this episode that there was one theme that I had not yet integrated as a thread through my previous episodes. That thread is consistency. Consistency in the way a professional works with a customer they see on a regular basis. Consistency in the work a professional does with a number of customers. Consistency in a team approach. Consistency modelled throughout an organisation. Boundaries are more challenging to have in place – when an organisation is loud about its mission statement, vision statement and expectations about how employees conduct themselves and then team leaders, supervisors, and management team – loudly role model something quite different. Talk about setting up moral distress in a workforce. Talk about taking work home. Talk about feelings of unfairness and injustices. Talk about employees wanting to do more for a customer than what the professional role requires. Well, we will talk about these further as we continue on our boundary journey. In today’s episode, we explore foundation stone number four – Reasons for boundary transgressions. I have developed a multilevel model to explore and explain the reasons for transgressions. I find that factors from all four levels contribute in some way to influencing a transgression. The four levels that I focus on are the Intrapsychic, Interpersonal, Organisational, and Broader System. I will give a brief introduction about each level and then using the scenario of the police officer I shall describe each level in greater detail. Let’s start with the Intrapsychic Level Intrapsychic is defined in the Marion Webster dictionary as “being or occurring within the psyche, mind, personality”, for me the Intrapsychic also includes a person’s beliefs and moral compass. At this point, I want to pause to consider – when I talk about the Intrapsychic in terms of boundaries, I include that of the individual client and of the individual professional. Remember, the professional is always responsible for commencing, maintaining and where necessary effectively ceasing the professional relationship. This is because of the inherent power/vulnerability dynamic in the relationship. However, there may also be other vulnerabilities in the client (beyond them being a client of the service) that predisposes a professional to be at greater risk of boundary transgressions with that individual client. I will explore this more, later in this episode. At the core of the Interpersonal level is the relationship between the professional and the other person, for example, the professional and a client, the professional and a colleague, the professional and a client’s support person. This level includes the dialogue, the interaction, the communication, the spoken and the unspoken, the dynamic of power and vulnerability, the social roles ascribed to each person such as nurse-patient, hairdresser-customer, support worker-customer, teacher-student, counsellor-client, police officer-customer. At the Organisational Level– it is important to consider how policies and procedures, guidelines, mission statements, job descriptions, Duty of Care, resource allocation, and expectations can challenge or compliment professional relationships. Expectations of supervisors and team leaders of their staff, expectations
