ABSTRACT
The notion of "boundaries" seems to have been seized upon by the emerging profession as an apparently theoretically coherent rationale which can be uncritically used to justify and legitimate institutionalized therapeutic practice. The conventional view of boundaries within therapy, essentially derived and uncritically adopted from psychoanalytic ideology, is that boundaries constitute "the most influential core conditions leading to ethical and successful counselling", and that "clarity about practice gives clients a sense of "being held'. A critically well received text by Lemma-Wright illustrates very clearly the inrantilizing effects of this aspect of therapy's ideological discourse. The function of holding in psychological terms is to provide ego-support, in particular at the stage of absolute dependence before integration of the ego has become established. In both classical psychoanalysis and psychotherapy more generally, the notion of "resistance" is seen as being central—as something which has to be "worked through" and "overcome" if therapy is to be successful.
