Where to Draw the Line: How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day

In the perennial favorite Boundaries, Anne Katherine introduced the concept and importance of personal limits. In Where to Draw the Line, she takes the next step with a practical guide to establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries in a wide range of situations.

With every encounter, we either demonstrate that we'll protect what we value or that we'll give ourselves away. Healthy boundaries preserve our integrity. Unlike defenses, which isolate us from our true selves and from those we love, boundaries filter out harm.

This book provides the tools and insights needed to create boundaries so that we can allow time and energy for the things that matter — and helps break down limiting defenses that stunt personal growth. Focusing on every facet of daily life — from friendships and sexual relationships to dress and appearance to money, food, and psychotherapy — Katherine presents case studies highlighting the ways in which individuals violate their own boundaries or let other people breach them. Using real-life examples, from self-sacrificing mothers to obsessive neat freaks, she offers specific advice on making choices that balance one's own needs with the needs of others.

Boundaries are the unseen structures that support healthy, productive lives. Where to Draw the Line shows readers how to strengthen them and hold them in place every day.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

In the perennial favorite Boundaries, Anne Katherine introduced the concept and importance of personal limits. In Where to Draw the Line, she takes the next step with a practical guide to establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries in a wide range of situations.

With every encounter, we either demonstrate that we'll protect what we value or that we'll give ourselves away. Healthy boundaries preserve our integrity. Unlike defenses, which isolate us from our true selves and from those we love, boundaries filter out harm.

This book provides the tools and insights needed to create boundaries so that we can allow time and energy for the things that matter — and helps break down limiting defenses that stunt personal growth. Focusing on every facet of daily life — from friendships and sexual relationships to dress and appearance to money, food, and psychotherapy — Katherine presents case studies highlighting the ways in which individuals violate their own boundaries or let other people breach them. Using real-life examples, from self-sacrificing mothers to obsessive neat freaks, she offers specific advice on making choices that balance one's own needs with the needs of others.

Boundaries are the unseen structures that support healthy, productive lives. Where to Draw the Line shows readers how to strengthen them and hold them in place every day.

Multitudinous Gratitude

1. What Are Boundaries?

2. Time Boundaries

3. Defenses versus Boundaries

4. Communication Boundaries

5. Setting Boundaries on Defensiveness

6. Boundary Violations

7. Setting Limits on Attack

8. Anger Boundaries

9. Making Amends

10. Friendship Boundaries

11. Gossip Gossip Gossip (or Triangulation)

12. Intimacy Boundaries

13. Holiday, Birthday, and Celebration Boundaries

14. Sexual Boundaries

15. Gender Boundaries

16. Divorce Boundaries

17. Possession Boundaries

18. Parent Boundaries

19. Spiritual Boundaries

20. Tidiness Boundaries

21. Dress and Appearance Boundaries

22. Boundaries for Illness and Chronic Conditions

23. When Someone Is Dying

24. Autonomy Boundaries

25. Food Boundaries

26. Internet Boundaries

27. Therapist Boundaries

28. Your Safe Country