Professional and Therapeutic Boundaries in Forensic Mental Health Practice

People who use forensic mental health services are defined by the fact that they have violated boundaries, often in many ways. For clinicians employed to work therapeutically with this client group however, the capacity to initiate and maintain boundaries is critical to safety as well as to good treatment outcomes.

This book provides a thorough introduction to the subject of professional and therapeutic boundaries and their particular complexities within forensic mental health settings. The contributors, all experts in their respective fields, address the challenges of establishing working boundaries within forensic mental health services from multiple perspectives. They explore the ways in which boundaries can be initiated and maintained in different areas of forensic mental health work, including in psychotherapy, mental health nursing, arts therapies, forensic psychiatry and family therapy, and when working with different client groups, including children and adolescents, offenders with severe personality disorders in high security settings and sex offenders. Consideration is also given to boundaries and homicide, maternal boundary violations and boundaries in a forensic learning disability service.

This authoritative, interdisciplinary resource will support all forensic mental health practitioners in this crucial aspect of their work.