Me, my boyfriend and his ‘boundaries’: How therapy speak took over relationships

“We need some boundaries,” he tells you, while exercising some of the most casual cruelty you’ve ever seen. “This is my self-care.” If you’ve dated in the Instagram age, you’ve probably encountered “therapy speak” like this, in which professional-sounding, doctor-certified words and phrases bulldoze their way into our relationship vocabulary. Under this doctrine of mental wellness – usually professed by self-help influencers and the very worst people on TikTok – pampering oneself and cosying up to Netflix is branded as “self-care”. Relaxing is a “mental health day”. And “boundaries”? Well… those are apparently setting unattainable expectations for the people around you to meet.

“Boundaries” came under the spotlight last week as texts supposedly sent by the Superbad actor Jonah Hill were leaked by his ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady. In them, Hill allegedly told Brady – who is a professional surfer – that she cannot surf with men, post pictures of herself wearing a bathing suit, model, or have “friendships with women who are in unstable places”. Why? Because those are his “boundaries for a romantic relationship”.

Brady alleged that Hill was “emotionally abusive”. After the screenshots went viral, critics pointed out specific undertones to the language in the texts. Political activist and No Offence, But… author Gina Martin claimed on Instagram that the word “boundaries”, in this context, should be exchanged for “misogynistic ultimatums”. Others suggested that “boundaries” as a term was being gravely misused. Typically, to create boundaries is to set limitations in order to protect someone’s mental wellbeing, such as letting your friend know that repeatedly calling you in the early hours of the morning to whine about an ex might be too much.

While “boundaries” have been recommended by self-help authors since the Eighties, the term has only entered the mainstream internet vernacular in recent years. It’s been further popularised by bite-size video clips on TikTok, in which self-professed wellness influencers preach the benefits of the term. Now, asserting boundaries in all aspects of your life is seen as a solution to batting off toxic behaviour and to “protect your energy” – a popular idiom that also whiffs of Instagram spirituality and post-pandemic individualism. In a sense, it’s all shorthand for putting yourself first. But in our search for new ways to articulate our feelings, have we taken boundaries too far in our romantic lives? Are people hiding their judgemental behaviour and unattainable demands behind a veil of “mental health”?

According to relationship expert Jessica Alderson, there are some serious benefits to implementing boundaries in your romantic relationships. She identifies “boundaries” as a set of “guidelines, limits, and expectations around how you want to be treated by others”. And in your love life, setting them with your partner can help “build trust”, “maintain individuality” and “foster mutual respect”. Alderson believes that boundaries can be especially helpful when both parties feel listened to. “You might set a boundary with your partner that you need time alone to decompress after a long day,” she says. “This boundary can help ensure that you get the space you need to reset.”

But it’s not that straightforward. Ironically, in trying to communicate our feelings, there is a major miscommunication behind what we actually mean when we refer to “boundaries”. In the self-help columns and books I’ve read on the topic, boundaries are often referred to rather vaguely and sometimes used as a synonym for merely talking to your significant other about your relationship. One article, titled “How to Set Healthy Boundaries in a Relationship”, advises readers to tell their partner “exactly what you need out of the relationship and what you’re willing to do for them”. That sounds like a good starting point for a conversation – but do our exchanges need to be so rigid and robotic?

Ali Ross, a psychotherapist and representative of the UK Council for Psychotherapy, tells me that people are often misusing the “boundary” term, and could be having more productive and open conversations if they ditched therapy jargon altogether. It’s rare your therapist will actually advise you to “assert some boundaries” to quell your life’s problems, after all. Ross says that he avoids using “therapy jargon” in his sessions, too. “I will throw my hands up and say ‘boundaries’ in air quotes because I think it’s problematic that people assume we all know what we mean when we say [that].”

Ali Ross

All of this could also have more worrying consequences. Not knowing the meaning of therapy jargon we adopt could be harmful, and weaponising that language can let a partner get away with unkind or controlling behaviour. “There is a difference between communicating your needs in a healthy way and trying to control the other person,” says Alderson. She adds that using therapy-speak to describe your feelings might come across as “clinical”, especially if those boundaries being asserted are not coming from an authentic place.

From working with many couples, Ross has noticed that when couples try to implement boundaries to improve their relationship, they usually find themselves in rigid scenarios that lack spontaneity or ease. “I don’t find that kind of language [is] inviting of any dialogue,” he explains. “The problem is that people are using it without understanding the weight of the term. They are using therapy jargon as a way to not be vulnerable or open and it’s got serious shortcomings.”

Ross says that using a boundary to establish control or safety over your life is “OK”, but it’s worth questioning why you need that boundary in the first place and if there is a more direct way of approaching that problem. “But if it’s a demand or expectation that somebody must meet your boundary purely because you have made a statement,” he says, “then you must understand what you mean by the terminology that you have used.”

It’s also easy to nod along when someone tells you they have decided to implement a “boundary” in your relationship, especially when that terminology sounds serious and backed by professional psychoanalysis – it can feel quite arresting, too, when the fingers are being pointed at you. Ross advises people that might feel boxed in by therapy language to “trust their instincts” and not assume that a person’s demands are sacrosanct. “You have permission to be curious about what someone means,” he says.

Our obsession with therapy jargon might be better understood as a constant desire to find new ways to articulate ourselves. Ross adds that the way forward should be to have more frank, direct conversations, and ask ourselves why we might feel we need “boundaries” that could otherwise be perceived as demands. “The jargon of therapy is not this sort of unchallengeable gospel truth,” says Ross. “It’s just a way of trying to describe the world. And often it does it badly.”