Professional Boundaries in Social Work

Written Originally for the publisher Wiley’s client: https://www.socialworkdegrees.org/

Social work very often involves delving deeply into intimate and sensitive details of other people. Social workers are authority figures with clinical licenses to help people resolve the myriad problems of their lives. 

Clinicians are not friends and licensed social workers are not family members –and behaving otherwise can have some serious consequences for social workers and clients alike. 

Setting boundaries in social work, therefore, is a crucial element in creating and maintaining a positive reputation and upholding high clinical standards. 

Without setting proper boundaries, social workers risk violating the HIPAA code of ethics, along with the mental and physical well-being of both clinician and client. 

Breaking ethical codes in social work through a lack of appropriate professional boundaries is a surefire route to diminishing one’s reputation and by definition, reducing the standard of one’s care. 

But what does it mean to have professional boundaries in social work? And more importantly, what does it mean to have boundaries in the context of clinical social work? What ethical codes should social workers understand, and what do unhealthy professional boundaries look like? 

What is a Boundary? 

Setting a boundary between oneself and another person, between oneself and a particular location, or between oneself and a group of individuals is highly context-dependent. 

Human boundaries, in other words, are not reducible to personal matters, or even professional matters. As dynamic as we are as a species, our conception of boundaries is wide-ranging, and our understanding of it is highly intuitive. That is, most human boundaries are set unconsciously.

How do we set boundaries in our daily lives?

However, despite this, we can broadly think of human boundaries as the level of access one permits another person to obtain, either to their bodies (physical boundaries) or their mental states (mental or psychological boundaries). 

To be even more specific, boundaries also include the amount of one’s time and energy one is voluntarily willing to permit another to possess. Our bodies, minds, time, and energy are all interconnected elements that compose who we are, so of course, we want to protect them. 

Consider walking up to a friend, trying to hug them, and being rejected with a shove. That is an example of a bodily boundary –one that perhaps indicates that your friend is no longer interested in friendship with you. 

Furthermore, consider walking up to a group of friends chatting, and upon arrival, their chatter ceases completely and noticeably. That is an example of a boundary concerning particular mental states –thoughts and utterances your friends do not want you to know. 

Again, picture starting your week with a loaded work schedule only to be invited to a party on a Tuesday night. RSVPing with a “no” is setting a boundary with respect to one’s time and energy. 

Having healthy boundaries in our personal lives is important for maintaining our health and well-being, and healthy boundaries entail respecting the needs of others and others, respecting your needs in kind. 

What Are Professional Boundaries and Why Are They Important? 

The boundaries we see in daily life also appear in professional life, albeit under different forms and practices, and they are just as crucial as setting personal boundaries --not to mention for similar reasons too!

Professional boundaries in social work, in particular, are especially important due to the gravity of the tasks social workers are faced with. 

Personal details and people’s lives are a constant factor in social work, which therefore warrants the highest degree of seriousness concerning ethical standards and care quality. 

Given the gravity of these tasks, therefore, social workers should expect the boundaries they need to keep to be somewhat complex and multifarious. 

The stakes are high, though, as HIPAA violations can cost social workers their licenses, and their reputations, and lacking professional boundaries will reduce one’s ability to efficiently be a social worker. 

Some of these boundaries are explicit and straightforward, such as maintaining the confidentiality of one’s clients. Others include not having personal relationships with clients and keeping a substantial distance between one’s personal and work life. 

Clients should not be able to access social workers 24/7 by phone or email for therapy sessions. A professional boundary here involves explaining to clients that phone calls and emails are only for setting up appointments. 

The purpose of social work is to help clients solve their human needs, whether that be individual needs, that of family, or even whole communities. 

In all cases, clients are under the care of a professional practitioner with standards to uphold, as opposed to being akin to a very close friend or family member in one’s professional relationships. 

What Do Unhealthy Boundaries Look Like in Social Work? 

Setting boundaries as a social worker involves explicit communication with clients on what sort of behavior for both parties is appropriate and what behavior isn’t appropriate. 

The most subtle way in which unhealthy boundaries appear in social work is when such communication is not clearly expressed to clients early on. 

It is imperative that clients know, for example, that you aren’t able to provide services anytime, anywhere, and that meeting in public spaces for personal reasons is strictly forbidden.

There are polite ways of expressing this –it will only come across as impolite, either when a boundary has been crossed by a client, partly because it was never set to begin with, or when it is set with a client who is perhaps suffering from borderline personality disorder (BPD). 

The essential worry with ethical violations in social work is that social workers and clients have a relationship that involves a strong power differential. 

Social workers are authorities in the context of their practice, and clients entrust them with such authority to provide a safe environment to work through their problems candidly. 

Both parties must know that the relationship between the client and the social worker is not and cannot be anything more than that. 

Social workers who are texting and talking with their clients on a regular basis through social media and personal devices are displaying profound red flags for violating ethical codes. 

Furthermore, social workers should not be warm and physical with clients. Hugging or embracing upon contact is profoundly inappropriate and will almost certainly result in termination if discovered. 

Divulging excessive personal details to clients is an unhealthy behavior pattern that social workers should avoid, as it puts a great deal of strain on the relationship between client and clinician by emotionally laboring a client who is simply seeking the help of an emotional laborer. 

Even tending to dress provocatively on days when scheduled to see a particular client is considered a broken boundary, as it insinuates that you are giving a client the wrong impression about the nature of your relationship with them. 

Lacking such boundaries is deeply harmful to both social workers and clients alike, making their relationship unhealthy. 

Breaking professional boundaries isn’t only bad for social workers because it violates HIPAA ethical codes but also because it compounds both parties’ stress and diminishes the work-life balance that is necessary to function properly as a social worker. 

How to Maintain Professional Boundaries with Clients

Suppose you have succeeded in making the nature of the client/clinician relationship clear at the beginning of a relationship with one’s client. In that case, it is imperative that you keep these boundaries in check as the relationship proceeds. 

Even if you have set a boundary explicitly, given the nature of social work, one is bound to have clients who not only intentionally break boundaries but enjoy doing so. It is essential to understand that this is the exception to the rule but that such exceptions do indeed exist. 

Perhaps even more critical for social workers is to resist backsliding on boundaries one has set. If a client is pushing you to break a boundary for good and is resistant to all attempts to cease their efforts, it might be necessary for social workers to remove themselves from the room. 

We cannot control how others behave –if maladaptive behavior is the problem a client needs to resolve, social workers are there to help sow civics and socialization into their client. 

There is no guarantee that this attempt will be fruitful, however, and in such cases breaking off the relationship one has with their client might be the best course of action. 

For instance, if you tell a client that you cannot meet in person, but you see them following you to your car after a session, that should elicit a warning at the very least. And repeated attempts to make contact should result in a complete shutdown of the relationship. 

Some clients are speaking with a social worker because they cannot have healthy boundaries in their relationships. 

Social workers should not dismiss these folks immediately if they break certain boundaries, as they aren’t necessarily lost causes. But when personal safety has become an issue, such as being stalked or harassed in public, a line from which there is no return has been crossed.