Sexual Boundary Violations via Digital Media Among Students

As digital media becomes more central to the lives of adolescents, it also becomes increasingly relevant for their sexual communication. Sexting as an important image-based digital medium provides opportunities for self-determined digital communication, but also carries specific risks for boundary violations. Accordingly, sexting is understood either as an everyday, or as risky and deviant behavior among adolescents. In the affectedness of boundary violations gender plays an important role. However, it is still unclear to what extent digital sexual communication restores stereotypical gender roles and restrictive sexuality norms or, alternatively, enables new spaces of possibility. In this sense, current research points to a desideratum regarding adolescents’ orientations toward sexting as a practice between spaces of possibility and boundary violations. This paper discusses the possibilities, but also the risks, of intimate digital communication among adolescents. The main question is, how adolescents themselves perceive sexting practices and how they position themselves between both spaces for possibility and for the exchange of unwanted sexual content. For this purpose, orientations toward normalities and gender of students are reconstructed. To answer these questions, twelve single-sex, group discussions were carried out with students aged 16 and 17 at five different secondary schools in northern Germany. A total of 20 boys and 22 girls took part. The group discussions were structured by a narrative generating guideline. The analysis draws its methodology from the Documentary Method, regarding implicit and explicit forms of knowledge and discourse. It results in a typology of three types with different orientations. The study shows, that most of the students consider sexting to be a risky practice; only one type shows normality in the use of sexting. At the same time, some of the young people are interested in experimenting with image-based intimate digital communication. Further, gender differences in use and affectedness are also documented. In this way, orientations toward gender stereotypes “favor” both the attribution of responsibility to girls, and overlook the responsibility of students who perpetrated the boundary violation. The orientations of adolescents should be taken more into account in research as well as in educational programs for the prevention of sexual violence.

Avoiding Boundary Violations: Recommendations for Managing Attraction to and From Clients in Response to the Healthcare Providers Service Organization’s 2019 Report

The standards regarding sexual relationships with clients are among the most clearly stated in the codes of ethics for the American Counseling Association and the American Mental Health Counselors Association. However, the majority of liability claims filed against counselors are for boundary violations of a sexual/romantic nature. Aggregate insurance liability data are presented, followed by management strategies related to attraction.

Venus: victim or violator?

This article explores sexual boundary violations and their clinical implications in forensic settings. In particular, the authors consider whether female professional and male patient relationship transgressions have similar clinical meanings as the inverse, or whether there is an inherent or perceived difference between genders. Furthermore, attention is brought to the problematic aspects of reductive, dichotomous interpretations of victim–violator relationships. Composite cases of such clinical "accidents" are presented. These are set within secure environments in the United Kingdom. The scope of these cases encompasses incidents between clinician and patient, as well as inter-professional boundary violations. By discussing these vignettes, the authors demonstrate the risk of a subtle, gradual, and insidious erosion of boundaries, alongside more overt incidents of a sexual nature and abuse of power. Contemporary societal factors that may influence conscious and unconscious biases will also be considered in the post #MeToo world. Where clinical examples are given, they are composites of cases reported in the public domain known to the authors. They are clinically accurate but do not involve actual identifiable people and cases.

Please, Do Not Interrupt Me: Work–Family Balance and Segmentation Behavior as Mediators of Boundary Violations and Teleworkers’ Burnout and Flourishing

The lockdown, in the COVID-19 pandemic, is considered an external crisis that evokes innumerous changes in individuals lives. One of the changes is the work and family dynamics. Based on boundary theory we examine the mediated role of work and family balance and boundary segmentation behavior in the relationship between boundary violations and teleworkers’ stress and well-being. However, because women and men live their work and family differently, gender may condition the way teleworkers lead with boundary violations and boundary segmentation. Hypotheses were tested through moderated mediation modeling using data collected of 456 teleworkers during lockdown. In line with our expectations, teleworkers who have suffered most boundary violations were those with least boundary segmentation behaviors and with least work-family balance which, in turn was related to higher burnout and lower flourishing. Furthermore, gender was found to moderate the relationship between boundary violations from work-to-family and segmentation behavior in the same direction and this relationship was stronger for females than for males. We discuss implications for future research and for managing teleworkers, creating sustainability, both during a crise and stable days.

Does Locus of Control Influence Parentification and Anxiety in Father–Daughter Relationships?

Parentification is a role-reversal phenomenon in which boundary violations occur such as children being their parents’ physical or emotional caretakers. Researchers have shown that childhood parentification can produce anxiety, but locus of control (LOC) moderates this relationship. We sought to examine the influence of LOC on the parentification-anxiety relationship in father–daughter dyads, as this dyad is under-represented in the parentification literature. One hundred and eighty-one undergraduate women completed an anxiety measure, parentification questionnaire, and an LOC inventory. Higher levels of parentification and lower levels of internal LOC were associated with higher reports of anxiety, but internal LOC did not appear to moderate the anxiety-parentification relationship. For individuals residing at home, parentification predicted anxiety, whereas internal LOC predicted anxiety among those not residing at home. These results further the paternal parentification literature, as well as show the relationship between childhood parentification and women’s anxiety for those currently living at home.