Our work often announces itself in the places we relegate to the back offices of the psyche. Boundaries are treated as ordinary admin: policies, modality, hours, fees. As a trainee, I thought boundaries were a given, a mutual understanding once the contract is agreed. Over time I’ve come to see that these same boundaries are one of the most concentrated sites of attachment, protest, shame, entitlement, loneliness, and hope. The frame isn’t outside therapy. It’s part of it.
If I could put one line on a banner for therapists: hold the frame, with care.
Let’s take something ordinary. A client asks for something extra. Not a crisis. Not a dramatic rupture. Just an add-on, more access, more certainty, more flexibility, more of you outside the usual shape of the work. And it can sound so reasonable that the therapist feels almost childish for hesitating.
Yeah. That’s exactly why it’s worth slowing down.
Because the moment you feel that small internal tug, “I should just do it”, you’re no longer dealing only with logistics. You’re dealing with the living contract. You’re dealing with what the client believes this relationship is, and what the therapist believes they have to be, to keep it safe, for this relationship to survive.
This is where the frame stops being admin and becomes the work.
The frame isn’t there to control. The frame is there to hold. It’s a container strong enough for feelings to show up without either side having to escape into performance. And the “extra asks” aren’t interruptions to therapy. They’re often the therapy arriving in its most honest form.
Just to be clear, not every request is manipulation. I’m also not saying every request should be welcomed. What I aim to emphasize is: pay attention to what the request is doing to, and how it’s impacting, the relationship.
What happens inside the therapist when the request lands?
Sometimes it’s guilt. Sometimes it’s irritation. Sometimes it’s a quick urgency, almost like a reflex to fix. Sometimes it’s that subtle fear: “If I don’t accommodate, I’ll lose them.” Or the other fear: “If I do accommodate, I’ll never get my life back.”
None of that is a sign you’re failing. It’s therapeutic data.
Because the therapist doesn’t only set boundaries with words. The therapist sets boundaries with their nervous system.
And this is the part that’s easy to miss: a boundary isn’t only a limit. A boundary is an invitation. It invites the client’s meaning-making to come forward.
What do you think it means when I don’t give you that?
What do you imagine is happening between us, right now?
What story do you tell yourself about you, about me, about closeness, when something is not immediately available?
Those questions don’t have to be asked as questions. They can be held as an orientation. A way of looking.
Because clients don’t experience limits in a neutral way. Limits land inside a history.
For one client, a limit feels like abandonment: “You disappear when I need you.”
For another, it feels like humiliation: “I shouldn’t have asked.”
For another, it becomes a power contest: “If I push hard enough, you’ll prove I matter.”
For another, it’s relief: “Finally, someone stays coherent.”
Same frame. Different worlds.
That’s why the work here isn’t “be firm” or “be soft.” It’s not a personality choice. It’s a relational posture: hold the line and stay with the impact.
And look, this is where therapists often get into trouble. Not because they set limits, but because they try to set limits without feeling anything about it.
They slip into justifying their boundaries.
Long, careful, responsible-sounding explanations that are actually doing something else: they’re trying to prevent protest. They’re trying to avoid being perceived and experienced as the “bad object.” They’re trying to keep the room calm.
Sometimes the room needs to be allowed to heat up a bit.
Not chaotic heat. Meaningful heat.
Because protest is therapeutic gold. Don’t rush past it. Protest tells you what the client does when reality doesn’t bend. It tells you how they hold disappointment. It tells you how they protect themselves from waiting, from longing, from feeling “not chosen,” from feeling small. If the therapist rushes to soothe the protest away, by giving in, or by over-justifying, or by going cold, then the protest never becomes thinkable. It just gets acted out.
So, here’s a clean way to hold it internally: don’t reduce the request to content. Track what the request is trying to solve within the therapist-client relationship.
Often, the “extra ask” is trying to solve an unbearable internal state.
Not always. But often.
Sometimes the request is a way to avoid feeling alone.
Sometimes it’s a way to avoid feeling helpless.
Sometimes it’s a way to avoid feeling shame for needing.
Sometimes it’s a way to test whether the therapist is reliable without the client having to risk direct vulnerability.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: sometimes we like it.
It can feel good to be needed. It can feel good to be the one who “goes the extra mile.” It can reduce the therapist’s anxiety in the short run. It can keep the relationship smooth. It can keep the client from getting angry. It can help the therapist avoid the ache of disappointing someone.
Again, no shame. Just notice the pull to do so.
Because a lot of boundary drift doesn’t happen because the client “forces” it. It happens because the therapist offers it quietly, to regulate something inside themselves. And then later, when the therapist tries to return to the original frame, it doesn’t land as a neutral correction. You give a little, then later you pull back. It lands as a relational event.
“So, you can be close… and then you decide not to be.”
That’s why unnamed contract changes are risky. Not because flexibility is wrong, but because silent flexibility becomes confusing. The client experiences it as a new truth about what this relationship is. The therapist experiences it as a growing burden. And then both sides start collecting stories: the client’s story of withdrawal, the therapist’s story of being used. Enactment arrives right on schedule.
This is also why clarity doesn’t have to be harsh.
A clear frame can be spoken plainly, short declaratives, no performance, and then the meaning can be explored.
You don’t have to trade clarity for comfort. And you don’t have to trade comfort for clarity.
A frame held cleanly does something very specific: it creates a place where longing can be felt without being immediately gratified, and disappointment can be felt without being immediately defended against. That’s not deprivation. That’s development. That’s what safety actually is.
And yes, it will trigger things. Of course it will.
Which brings me to a point that gets lost in modern therapy culture: therapy is not meant to remove every friction point in relationship. Therapy is meant to make friction points usable. Thinkable. Speakable. Held.
If you want a reflective lens for yourself as a clinician, it might be this:
When the “extra ask” arrives, can I pause long enough to notice what it awakens in me, guilt, irritation, fear, urgency, without acting from it immediately?
And can I stay curious about what the ask awakens in them without collapsing into appeasement, and without retreating into coldness?
Because that’s the real skill. Not the perfect boundary. Not the perfect empathy. The ability to stay coherent and stay connected while the client’s meaning-making comes alive.
And that’s why I keep saying: the frame is not a technicality. The frame is one of the most relational things we offer. It’s how we teach the nervous system, slowly, that connection can survive limits; that protest doesn’t have to destroy closeness; that needing doesn’t have to turn into either entitlement or shame; that waiting doesn’t have to mean abandonment.
This is the part I’d actually want us talking about more, in teams, in training, in supervision:
Where do I over-explain because I’m afraid of protest?
Where do I give “extras” because it makes me feel like a good therapist, even if it confuses the contract?
Where do I hold limits in a way that becomes emotionally absent, because I’m defending against my own guilt?
And if I’m honest, what do I imagine will happen if a client is disappointed in me and I don’t rush to fix it?
That’s not a small question. That’s the work. If you can stay with that moment, you’ll learn more than any policy can teach you.