| The examples in the article are not what therapists recommend (or should be recommending, at least). First, not every relationship has to work. Sometimes people are just incompatible. Even family and long time friends. A boundary doesn't mean you get what you want. The boundary-hearer would have been good off setting their own boundary. Boundaries are of the form 'if x then y'. If your boundaries include the word boundary you are probably doing it wrong. In the relative ghosting situation, it isn't up to them. They can open a dialog, but that's it. "You made me feel ..." can be a problem because it doesn't take responsibility for the feeling. It can result in a defensive response. The other person could also have tried harder to understand what they were told - neither person seemed sympathetic. Nothing wrong with it, but not what a therapist ought to be recommending to someone having communication trouble. Diagnosing others on second-hand accounts is definitely not something therapists (should) do. Diagnosis is a last resort thing, and patients shouldn't be encouraged to diagnosis others (especially to their face). An important lesson that many people need is that it is okay to assert boundaries even if the other person isn't a narcissist or doing something wrong. A boundary should not involve telling the other person they have done something wrong. Really the biggest thing most people need to learn is a safe and non-inflammatory way of communicating to fall back on that won't get them in trouble when their emotions are running high. The formulaic ways of speaking are crutches until you get the intuition for it. If you do a good job with this stuff, you won't have to push other people to speak or act differently. They will come to you and ask what your secret is for handling the 'difficult' person they are having trouble with. |