Boundary management (part 2 of 3)

Whilst the maintenance of healthy boundaries in therapy serves to protect both the client and the therapist (Crago & Gardiner, 2012) it became a frequent concern as I alternated between radical transparency and my need for privacy. Grounded in physical, ethical and socioeconomic needs for both client and therapist, boundaries provide safety yet can simultaneously limit opportunities.

Complexity arose when I considered adding links in my About page to my professional art website, noting the public nature of art, through the act of selling and exhibiting, casts the artist into the public eye, I contemplated “Am I allowed to sell art to clients? What if they see me at the markets? What if they already have a piece of my art?” (p.6). These thoughts were exacerbated by a memory of a potential client who recognised me from a local market where she purchased a painting from me. I recalled we had a long conversation (many moons before my art therapy journey began), but specific details of our conversation have been wiped from memory. Shortly after this, I pulled out of local markets, wanting to avoid potential interaction with clients until such time as I was clear in how to navigate personal and professional boundaries. Creating my online identity reminded me that in a small town, it is difficult to separate public from private identities, compounded by the proliferation of social-media and my own marketing efforts to sell my artworks.

That said, in the interest of transparency I contemplated including links to social-media sites to personalise my site. However, as I use my social-media profiles to promote my art business, I feared this might seem like self-promotion rather than transparency. This then raised the question, if art is what makes an art therapist, how can I equally dedicate time and space to both without compromising one or the other? I noted, “do I need to pick between art therapy and artist identity in order to succeed?” (p.8). When it comes to technology, the answer, sadly, is usually yes. I do need to choose. For instance, I can either maintain two separate websites, one for art therapy and one for my art practice, or I can combine them. If they remain separate, I need to decide which result I would like people to see first when they search by my name – my art or my art therapy website? It appears there is no simple way to get around Google’s imposed hierarchy. As there is only one ‘number one’ listing, it helped me to question if I am an art therapist who makes art or an artist who is an art therapist? The irony of competing with oneself was not lost, yet it lead to a personal decision to privilege the interests of the client. As such, I would aim to prioritise my art therapy website over my art practice (in the interests of self-care, this is likely to be periodically reassessed).

Whilst art therapists are encouraged to maintain an art practice (Moon, 2002), this study helped me to consider how my art practice could be presented to clients for the purposes of transparency to reduce client’s anxiety and increase connection (DeCamp, Koenig, & Chisolm, 2013), whilst bringing light to the potentially negative impacts of revealing my art practice to clients who may dislike, disagree with or, worse yet, want to commission a painting, only to be told that it is against the Code of Ethics which prevents me from doing business with clients (ANZATA, 2017). I resolved to create a personal manifesto (see Appendix I), governing client interactions, for instance, clients can purchase art from public domains but cannot commission works.

Ultimately I began to understand that rather than being a blank canvas favouring Freudian client relationships grounded in distance and neutrality, I align with Ferenczi who favours self-disclosure and self-participation (DeCamp, Koenig, & Chisolm, 2013).