As humans, we have an innate desire to create connections and build secure relationships. Communication plays an important role in maintaining these relationships. People communicate in different ways, including passive, assertive, and aggressive styles. Assertiveness is the middle ground between passivity and aggression. It respects personal boundaries while still allowing clear expression of needs.
Expressing assertiveness helps you communicate your needs while maintaining a strong sense of self. It also allows others to have experiences that may be different from your own. Setting healthy boundaries reinforces that every person has the right to protect and defend themselves.
‘Thick’ or ‘Thin’ Boundaries?
People who score ‘thin’ on boundaries tend to be more open, trusting, and vulnerable and have a rich fantasy life. They can struggle to distinguish between their own and other’s needs. People with very ‘thick’ boundaries tend to be solid, organized and sometimes too rigid and tend to be insensitive to the damage their boundaries can cause. Awareness of one’s boundary levels, purpose and impact are all useful places to reflect when it comes to boundary setting.
How does Trauma affect your Assertiveness?
One of the most severe consequences of trauma is the collapse of boundaries, not just in the moment that caused trauma but as a lasting effect. Their bodies are in a reponse state to threat- to their physical and emotional well-being. This impacts their sense of identity as it can be challenging for them to understand where ‘they’ end, and ‘others’ begin. They can easily go into states of fight, flight, freeze or fawn due to the dysregulations in their nervous system. The feeling of unsafety generates the belief that others are not to be trusted, or they feel the need to please others to avoid ‘threat’. Boundaries either become non-existent or rigidly maintained, with the primary purpose of avoiding all threat or any possibility of real connection, depending on the type of trauma. People with developmental trauma have a hard time with trust as their caregivers or loved ones abused their trust or safety during childhood. This can lead to rigidly maintained boundaries, or aggressiveness in some.
Societal Issues
It is also important to understand that societal and systemic factors such as income inequality, gender roles, racism, and institutional violence can influence how individuals experience and express boundaries. These experiences are often explored in social anxiety counselling, women’s therapy, and culturally sensitive counselling services in BC, Canada.
How can Counselling help?
Counselling supports individuals in understanding their emotional triggers, attachment patterns, and communication styles. Therapy helps people learn how to express needs, build confidence, and develop emotional regulation skills in a safe and supportive environment.
At No Fear Counselling, we offer CBT therapy, trauma counselling, somatic therapy, emotionally focused therapy (EFT), and relationship counselling in Surrey, Burnaby, Vancouver, Coquitlam, Langley, andRichmond to help clients build stronger boundaries and healthier relationships.
Through counselling, individuals can develop greater self-awareness, improve emotional balance, and strengthen their ability to maintain healthy connections while respecting both their own needs and those of others.
References
Dombeck, M., & Wells-Moran, J. (2006). Setting boundaries appropriately: Assertiveness training. Retrieved March, 15, 2011.
Hartmann, E. (1997). The concept of boundaries in counselling and psychotherapy. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 25(2), 147-162.
Heitzler, M. (2013). Broken boundaries, invaded territories: The challenges of containment in trauma work. International Body Psychology Journal, 12(1), 28-41.