Four psycho-body professionals question the concept of "boundary" in the psychotherapeutic relationship as well as in the process of healing, in group work and in everyday life.

Nicola Bonacini (psychologist, psychotherapist)

HOW NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE BOUNDARIES

I think that having good boundaries in relationships, as well as within oneself, is already a good sign of moderate psychological health. And I also think that this theme is one of the most important contributions that today psychological sciences can offer to our society both in the macro dimension (as multitudes of people) and in the micro dimension (as individuals). Situations that are talked about a lot in this period such as domestic violence, bullying and offences on social networks are also the sign of a pedagogical and cultural lack of boundaries: invasions (even with the energy of one's body) and offences, rather than confrontation, dialogue and respect for the positions of others, even if different, are perceived as automatic, normal behaviours (there is no deep awareness of the wound and the pain that are consequently generated). In psychotherapy people learn to be welcomed and listened to as perhaps they have never been in their whole life, but they experience that relationship with limits too: the session fixed hours, the payment methods and amount, the fact that the therapist, even if he or she is a person to whom very intimate things are often told, is not an individual with whom one generally shares other situations (going out to dinner or with mutual friends, meeting up to chat). These boundaries, in fact, which in some cases might seem, at least at the beginning, excessively rigid, are one of the components of the effectiveness of psychotherapy. This dimension, where the (few) rules are clear, gradually teaches us that even in the relationships closest to us the existence of some limits is good; and precisely by virtue of this approach, which has to do with respect for the other and therefore for what is different (other than me), one of the foundations for a healthy relationship life (and, one might say, also for a better coexistence between peoples) is born. Yet, looking around, we notice confusion, pain often triggered by wrong words, loneliness due to an excessive investment in our external image to the detriment of our interiority and our healthy habit of reasoning, of finding the right words (which is a complex work, but also a sound foundation for our ties which does not make them tremble), of building relationships of trust that allow us not to feel alone even when we are physically alone or when we need help. And we also note that emotional deficiencies often go hand in hand with symbiotic relationships or relationships based on a deleterious sense of possession. And so you stop listening, provided that you ever did. In his book The Body and the Word, George Downing says that traumatic events, also due to their prerogative of violently breaching boundaries, also generate negative effects in the body: psychotherapy is a slow, laborious work of reconstructing what was once violated. To good health we will therefore associate boundaries that are not impermeable (exchange cannot be missing), but solid and above all alive, i.e., such boundaries will be endowed with a strong, individual identity: in this way it will be much clearer for the individual when to say yes and when to say no (what to let pass and what not). You may envision the image of a good floodgate operator who knows when to close and when to open. A complex activity - but we could also call it an art - in the age of machines, images and frenzy, which requires time, effort and investment, but which will reassure our one and only soul.

Marica Artosi (expert in bodywork techniques, she leads bioenergetic classes and seminars in Bologna):

BIOENERGETICS AS A PRACTICE ON THE BOUNDARIES

The more we feel ourselves, the more we perceive the defences, the blocks that structure our character and define our identity; the more we feel ourselves and the more we perceive our limits and the need to make our "psycho-corporeal/emotional" boundaries thicker if we are too permeable or thinner and less rigid if we are too impermeable. In fact, boundaries are also born for reasons of security and not just of identity, they often coincide with our defences and sometimes, unfortunately, they give us a limited vision of ourselves. But through bioenergetic practice we can feel that our boundaries are not rigid barriers but lines, waves in motion that we can learn to self-regulate according to the situation; we can dare a little more or distance ourselves from what we are at that precise moment and from the reality we are experiencing. Bioenergetics makes us feel that boundaries, rather than defend ourselves from others, remind us where we are at this very moment. It has been very interesting during these Covid19 months (March/May 2020) to see, in the online bioenergetic practices through Zoom platform, thanks to the feedback of the members of the group, how something new has happened.
If during the "on site" bioenergetic classes participants sometimes lost the feeling of their own body and therefore also the feeling of their own boundaries due to a shift of attention to the other elements of the group, in the online bioenergetic classes almost the opposite happened. Many people said they felt deeper work and were able to feel more of their body, of the grounding and the vibrations in their legs (which are usually among the positive effects of the practice).
Alone in their room, the fact of having a screen in between created a boundary.
This means that when there is no real/virtual boundary we have to modulate it ourselves. As you have to feel others and yourselves, listening to yourself is more complicated and there is the possibility of losing your attention and shifting it too far or too close to what you expect from yourself. In the online bioenergetic practice, all the part that has to do with performance anxiety was missing. In group practice it is not always easy to respect yourself: shame, competition, various narcissistic wounds, the need to feel part of a group (and not different from it), the sense of inadequacy and so on arrive.
The online practice has allowed many people (not all, some need the energy of the group to feel and empathize with themselves more) to do a deeper job than during face-to-face classes. A work that, when we meet again in person, will probably be used to relate to others by modulating one's boundaries in a new and more adaptive way, precisely by thinking to the bodily/emotional classes experienced online.

Fabrizio Stasi (physiotherapist, psychologist, psychotherapist, he lives and works as a private practitioner in Brussels):

SELECTIVE PERMEABILITY

Let's imagine a cell, whose membrane separates it from the outside world.

The cell membrane has an extraordinary characteristic, that of being selectively permeable, that is, of allowing the entry of nutritional elements but preventing the passage of toxic elements, if not outwards.

When this system is attacked, this results in anomalies of varying severity.

The human psyche works in the same way: a balanced person lets in what is pleasant/useful from the outside world (affective, emotional or cognitive nourishment) and rejects what is unpleasant/harmful (intrusions, blame, inadequate responsibility). It also gets rid of toxic moods, which create pain, by expressing them outwards (for example through anger, crying).

But what happens when a person is out of balance?

Two types of situations can occur, one in excess and one in defect and both cause a more or less serious malaise, based on how much the personality deviates from balance. If the personality is excessively permeable, the person tends to be invaded, to the point of feeling crushed and abused; at the same time, however, he or she can have great sensitivity, creativity, empathic abilities, up to those who can perceive energy states out of ordinary.

Instead, people who have a rigid, not very permeable personality, know how to be respected, can be strong and charismatic, but lack the ability to develop a deep relationship with others and live a more or less profound sense of loneliness. In short, they are very focused on themselves, for better or worse.

How to regain lost balance and well-being?

Let's return to the anomalous cell: we discover that in the past it was attacked by a virus; to save itself it managed to modify the permeability of its membrane and survived. But the membrane has structured a defensive modality (in excess or lack of permeability) that still remains even if the virus has been eradicated and that defence today has itself become a source of malaise (allergies, immunodeficiencies).

That happens even in the psyche: in one case the "virus" that has attacked it could be, for example, lack of attention, to the point of indifference, or on the contrary excessive control, to the point of oppression and mistreatment. To save itself, the psyche found a good solution, a defence that allowed it to survive, but the price was the renunciation of a part of itself. It may have had to deprive itself of the ability to curb external intrusiveness in order to maintain the relationship anyway, or on the contrary, to withdraw into itself, losing the ability to tune into the outside world.

In the treatment of allergies desensitization is stimulated, through the administration of small doses of allergen, so that the body gradually gets used to tolerating it.

The same can be done on a psychic level: it involves making corrective experiences in protected situations, that is, in a psychotherapy setting, in order to learn to tolerate those situations which by similarity create an emotional link with past events. In this way it is possible to “train” to inhibit automatic defensive responses and learn to react more adequately to the present, experimenting with forgotten relational modalities.

Per le personalità “troppo permeabili” questo significa esercitarsi a mettere i propri limiti, frenare il proprio slancio ad occuparsi o preoccuparsi per gli altri, osare dire più spesso “no”, tollerando il senso di colpa e la paura del giudizio, che inevitabilmente si faranno sentire.

For the "not very permeable" ones, on the other hand, it will be a matter of daring to show their frailties, experience passivity, tender contact, empathy, train the perception and expression of "soft" feelings, facing the fear of abandonment that will emerge in defence, even if no longer necessary.

In conclusion, regaining health means calling into question one's limits, one's habits. It is necessary to dare to get back into the game, to restore elasticity to one's defence mechanisms and discover new ways of communicating and interacting with the world.

Elisa Magrinello (psychologist, psychotherapist, palliativist, works in the province of Brescia and Milan):

THE HUG THAT RESPECTS

In a world where societal boundaries are becoming less and less tangible and support networks are becoming more and more fragile, Baumann in 2006 spoke about how you can risk trying the fragility of love. When you no longer perceive your value and therefore your dimension, you enter an ocean of possibilities from which you do not get any value. You become a floating and wandering body in an infinite space of which you no longer perceive anything. In psychotherapy you enter a new world, in a safe container. Together the therapist and the patient discover new dimensions. The reassuring and stimulating boundary of the therapeutic context absorbs the pain of the inflicted and self-inflicted wounds. Today more than ever we have stripped ourselves of roles and labels built up over history, but if on the one hand this has given us the opportunity to get more and more in touch with our essence, on the other we have risked losing ourselves, of denaturalizing our primary goals. Each age has its own challenge. Any intrapsychic study cannot exempt itself from this responsibility, from the choice of the therapeutic setting to the decision of which therapeutic approach to use. Now more than ever the creation of new ways of communication becomes fundamental to make the person find her or his own direction. But to be able to unite different worlds, from the web to the therapeutic touch, we will therefore need to know more and more those limits within which to move and to know better and better the origins of our boundaries. Only in this way will they not become prisons but steppingstones towards which to strive. Fear clouds the creative and vital tension and leads us to protective rituals emptied of their native meaning, so that the individual creates barriers, walls - impassable boundaries. The therapist thus becomes, like Michelangelo, a skilled artist in handling the superstructural defence mechanisms and at the same time a tailor of new and ancient boundaries. What separates also allows us to unite in new dimensions, what contains allows us to welcome. The hug, therefore, delimited by our body, allows us to go beyond human finitude, without losing who we are.