ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the earlier efforts by introducing the Boundary Violation Cycle, a chain of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that can ultimately lead a clinician to engage in a sexual boundary violation. The same holds true for the Boundary Violation Cycle: the longer one travels along it the more challenging it is to exit it. Each step along the Boundary Violation Cycle entrenches one deeper in the process and makes it far less likely one will be able to stop its momentum. Each individual’s idiosyncratic history fosters specific risks, vulnerabilities, and strengths that respectively increase or lower the likelihood of a clinical sexual boundary violation. There is significant evidence that non-sexual boundary crossings consistently precede a sexual relationship between a client and mental health professional. The Boundary Violation Cycle offers clinicians an explanatory process model for sexual boundary violations. The Boundary Violation Cycle is one way of conceptualizing sexual attraction and sexual boundary crossings in therapy.
