Dialogical practice and the idea of boundaries

Traditional psychotherapeutic practice emphasises professional boundaries. While most psychotherapeutic frameworks are likely to agree on the wrongness of serious boundary violations, there may be differences in how boundary transgressions are conceptualised. Some dialogical practitioners consider the therapeutic helpfulness or otherwise of self disclosure. Nevertheless, the relevance and role of the concept of boundaries appears to be undertheorised in relation to a way of helping that emphasises the use of self, the valuing of all voices, and the flattening of hierarchies. In this workshop, we present questions we have about the idea of boundaries in dialogical practice and invite participants to contribute to thinking about the opportunities and challenges that come with the notion of professional boundaries.