Boundaries benefit both parties. Assumptions and inferences are the opposite of explicitly agreed boundaries.

A boundary is a relationship agreement to play and explore, honouring the limits of self and another. These agreements naturally get stress-tested by aspects of the self that were never part of them. Inferences are often where those aspects live — the parts that have not yet found a voice to be recognised. I bring over forty years of professional clinical experience to the work of including exiled aspects of the self, so that you can participate confidently in co-created, explicit relationship agreements, and so that fewer prediction errors arise from inferences neither of us has acknowledged.

I honour, adhere to and follow the professional guidelines and codes of conduct of the ACSB (Association of Certified Sexological Bodyworkers), ASIS (Association of Somatic and Integrative Sexologists), the Wheel of Consent and Right Use of Power. Everything below sits within them.

These are the professional boundaries I am accountable for in my relationship with you.

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Material

What, if anything, you are willing to give or share — within a confidential professional training curriculum, in confidential supervision, in written work, on social media, or on any publicly accessible platform. This includes quotes from you, testimonials, demonstration videos, Body Poem recordings and films. Your willing, explicit agreement is required before any of these are shared.

Physical

These protect your personal space and your privacy. I am a certified Wheel of Consent and Right Use of Power practitioner, and that informs every session. Your personal space and your need for privacy are honoured, with facilitation to help you notice what those are and to make agreements and practices that hold them.

Mental and emotional

You have the right to your own thoughts, emotions, values, beliefs and opinions, whether or not they align with anyone else's. Your emotions belong to you and other people's belong to them; you are responsible only for your own. I meet what emerges in you with radical acceptance. It is not mine to correct, and it stays confidential both inside and outside the session.

Safety

These boundaries concern intentions to cause physical harm.

Thoughts and feelings about harming yourself or another — however violent — are held within the work with radical acceptance, and we stay with them until they find their resting place and there is enough of a sense of justice in you not to act on them. That is ordinary territory here, and it stays between us.

There is one limit. If you tell me of a premeditated intention to cause serious physical harm to yourself or another, and it is an intention you cannot resist, I have a duty of care to involve professionals who carry responsibility for public safety. In practice, the first contact would be your GP. Your consent to that is agreed with me at the beginning of our work together, before it is ever needed.

Sexual

These protect your right to choose your comfort level with somatic practices and bodywork involving your genitals or anus. Professional agreements are co-created at the start of each session, in an educational and therapeutic contract that sets out step by step what you wish to explore. You can update it at any moment to do less than agreed, never more. Forty years of practice inform my duty of care when holding space for someone in the altered states that arise naturally during this work. While clothed touch is two-way in intimacy training, all erotic touch is one-way, following the Wheel of Consent.

Trauma-informed

Trauma responses can occur outside conscious awareness, and before thought. My clinical practice and training inform my ability to hold space while a response sequences through, to stay with you in it, and to support you back into equilibrium afterwards. These experiences often herald a breakthrough — an aspect of the self in the process of being recognised and acknowledged.

Spiritual

Your spiritual affiliations, your prayers and the ethical intentions of your path are honoured, recognised and accepted. I have no intention of converting you to anything. Your spiritual evolution, and your belonging to any collective that supports your wellbeing, will inform the work and are welcome in it.

Dual social and professional roles

If we find ourselves in the same public or private environment, online or in person, I will honour your privacy: I will not approach you, and I will not share the nature of our professional relationship with anyone present. If we both know we are likely to be somewhere together, we will agree beforehand what feels most honouring of your privacy.

Dual teaching and therapeutic roles

If I am teaching on a professional training you are taking, in a role that includes assessing your core competencies, it is not appropriate for you also to be in private therapy with me. I practise radical acceptance with all aspects of self, and I understand that melting-pot experiences are necessary to our personal and professional evolution — and the role of a teacher is different from the role and responsibilities of a therapist.

Romantic and sexual relationships

I do not engage in romantic or sexual relationships with clients — during sessions, outside sessions, or after our work has ended.

Communications between sessions, and after they end

The time container of a session holds our agreement to share a focus of attention at the same time. Processing continues between and after sessions, but not in shared time. Outside a session we have no agreement to attend together, and so communication is call and response, at different times. We will agree the frequency and form of communication between sessions and after they end, including how and when each of us responds. Either of us can ask to update those agreements if they start to become dysregulating.

Repair, where a boundary is felt to have been crossed

I will offer the Right Use of Power five-step Up-Power or seven-step Down-Power process, free of charge, to resolve any rupture that has caused upset or dysregulation. I am a qualified Right Use of Power practitioner and teacher, and I will explain these processes if you would like to use one — including the option of a third-party mediator where that would help.