Boundary Issues and Dual Relationships in the Human Services

Should a therapist disclose personal information to a client, accept a client's gift, or provide a former client with a job? Is it appropriate to exchange email or text messages with clients or correspond with them on social networking websites? Some acts, such as initiating a sexual relationship with a client, are clearly prohibited, yet what about more subtle interactions, such as hugging or accepting invitations to a social event? Is maintaining a friendship with a former client or client's relative a conflict of interest that ultimately subverts the client-practitioner relationship?

Frederic G. Reamer, a certified authority on professional ethics, offers a frank analysis of a range of boundary issues and their complex formulations. He confronts the ethics of intimate and sexual relationships with clients and former clients, the healthy parameters of practitioners' self-disclosure, electronic relationships with clients, the giving and receiving of gifts and favors, the bartering of services, and the unavoidable and unanticipated circumstances of social encounters and geographical proximity. With case studies addressing challenges in the mental health field, school contexts, child welfare, addiction programs, home-healthcare, elder services, and prison, rural, and military settings, Reamer offers effective, practical risk-management models that prevent problems and help balance dual relationships.

Frederic G. Reamer is professor at the School of Social Work, Rhode Island College. His many books include Teens in Crisis: How the Industry Serving Struggling Teens Helps and Hurts Our Kids; Social Work Values and Ethics; Criminal Lessons: Case Studies and Commentary on Crime and Justice; and Social Work Malpractice and Liability: Strategies for Prevention.