By Philip Chanin, Ed.D., ABPP, CGP
Board Certified Clinical Psychologist
Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
www.drphilchanin.com
philchanin@gmail.com

Terrene Real’s second book is titled How Can I Get Through to You: Reconnecting Men and Women.  He devotes an entire chapter to the idea of an “Internal Boundary.” This chapter is titled, “Learning to Listen:  Scanning for the Positive.”  I keep copies of this chapter in my office, and I have given hundreds of individuals and couples the entire chapter to read and reread. 

In this chapter, Real describes how everyone needs what he calls an “internal boundary,” which is a kind of “emotional insulation,” in all of our relationships. He writes, “A poor internal boundary allows other people’s feedback, beliefs about you, even, at times, their emotional state to pierce you to the quick. ‘How could you think that of me?’  ‘I’m so hurt that you feel that way!’ or ‘It depresses me when you get so sad,’ are hallmark sentiments of someone with a ‘thin skin,’ a poor internal boundary.”

Real continues, “A healthy boundary is supple; it allows you to be both protected and yet connected at the same time.  As your partner speaks, whatever emotion she throws at you goes splat on the outside of your internal boundary.  Imagine this psychic shield as resting about arm’s length away, encircling you.  Safely ensconced within your boundary, you cast a cool eye on what’s being asserted, point by point.  If the material rings true for you, or if some portion of it seems true, you relax your boundary and let that in…That portion of the material that does not seem true you simply let drop, like an egg sliding off glass and landing on the floor.  You understand that such inaccurate descriptions of you are important information about the speaker.” (pp. 238-239)

Real adds, “Be certain that your internal boundary remains impermeable; nothing can get past it unless you choose to let it.  The nastiest comment, the most raw feeling—an emotional atom bomb could go off and you would remain unfazed.  Inside your circle you can afford to be open, spacious, curious, relaxed…The lack of an internal boundary inevitably leads to control or withdrawal.  If there is no membrane between you and whatever external stimulus gets thrown at you, then you attempt to regulate your own level of comfort or discomfort by managing the stimulus. (‘I could be happy, if only you were less angry.’)  When control fails, the only other option is withdrawal.” (pp. 240-241)

In his third book, The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work, Real refines his approach, saying, “Your psychological boundary is to your psyche what your skin is to your body.  It’s where you end and the world begins.  And just like your skin, it has two functions: it contains you and it protects you.  Imagine your psychic ‘skin’ as being like an orange rind.  Like the covering of an orange, your psychological boundary has an inside and an outside.  The outside, protective part of the boundary shields you from the world; the inside, containing part shields the world from you.”(p. 124)

Real elaborates: “Containment means your capacity for restraint.  The containing part of your psychological boundary (the inside of the rind) stops you from leaking out your ‘stuff’ onto those around you—your rage, your anxiety, your sexuality, your certainties about right and wrong.  It stops you from acting out your inappropriate impulses…dead-stop contracts and time outs..strengthen the containing part of your psychological boundary.  Clamping your mouth shut, taking a time-out, or walking away from a fight are excellent examples of how to build strong containing muscles.”  (pp. 124-125)

Real continues, “Fully developing the containing part of your psychological boundary is a necessary prerequisite for closeness, because without it you will behave inappropriately, or even offensively…People with a weak containing part of their psychological boundary will be intrusive.  They are prone to the losing strategies of control, unbridled self-expression, and

retaliation.  When you commit to the practice of full-respect living, you stop making excuses for uncontained behaviors—either yours or anyone else’s.”  (p. 125)

 Real explains how the protective part of one’s psychological boundary works: “The protective part of your psychological boundary (the outside of the rind) protects you from others’ intrusion just as containment protects them from yours.  Fully developing the protective part of your psychological boundary is a necessary prerequisite for closeness, because it allows you to be connected and protected at the same time.  People for whom the protective part of the internal boundary (the outside of the rind) is weak or nonexistent are prey to any idea or emotion that someone they’re close to throws at them.”  (p. 125)

Real continues: “When people speak of being ‘thin-skinned,’ or ‘too sensitive,’ they probably mean that they lack a protective psychological boundary.  When someone feels wounded that

‘you could even think that of me,’ he is in boundary failure…Remember, there is no place for ‘objective reality’ in personal relationships…Imagine the person’s assertions about you going splat on your psychic windshield like an egg sliding off glass.  You say to yourself, ‘That’s about him; it’s not about me.’”  (p. 127)

Real elaborates about the protective function of one’s internal boundary: “Your partner’s inaccurate images of you are just his projections, the products of his imagination.  You needn’t get wound up about them.  And you needn’t become high and mighty either, because you have the good sense and humility to appreciate that getting things wrong, imagining all sorts of nonsense, is just what we humans do in close quarters.”  (p. 127)

Real continues, “When you have a poor protective psychological boundary, you are in a constant state of emotional vulnerability.  If you are fighting with your partner, for example, and he says something negative about you, you will immediately and invariably start feeling bad—not just about him, but about yourself as well—even if what he’s saying is totally untrue.  You lack the means to keep his negativity at bay.  Without a protective psychological boundary, the only way you can make yourself comfortable is by stopping the upsetting stimulus…you have to either get him to stop saying that or else leave, removing yourself from the disquieting material.  Your only options are the two losing strategies of control or withdrawal.” (p. 128)

Real summarizes the enormous benefits of a protective internal boundary: “And this newly developed capacity to self-regulate, independent of changes in your environment, releases you from endless, seemingly uncontrollable reactivity.  You don’t need to feel hurt; you don’t need to fight back; you don’t need to ‘get’ your partner to see things differently; you don’t need to be defensive; you don’t need to run away.  In fact, you no longer need to do anything.  Protected by your internal boundary, you have the miraculous new freedom to simply stand still and be present, or said differently, to utterly transform your relationship.” (pp. 128-129)

Real also addresses the situation when a person is too boundaried and lives behind a wall:  “When you’re behind a wall, you take in nothing.  You are not engaged with the speaker; in fact, no matter what you may look like from the outside, you’re not actually listening at all.  You are shut up in a closed fortress that no one can breach.”

“When you are boundaryless, you are connected but not protected.  When you are behind a wall, you are protected but not connected.  Neither condition is intimate.  The number of things we can use as walls is simply astounding: walls of silence, walls of words, walls of anger, intoxication, preoccupation, charm, humor, condescension, helpless fatigue.”  (p. 129)

Real adds, “The one and only circumstance in which using a wall is appropriate is when you’re on the receiving end of someone’s abuse and you can’t, or choose not to, remove yourself.  You’re stuck in a full airplane and your partner’s being a jerk to you.  Or you’re in a car with him ten minutes away from the dinner party you’re both attending and he’s directing his anger at you.  Then, and only then, you can choose to use a wall in order to protect yourself.  And even then, you must soften your wall back into becoming a pliant boundary the minute the abuse stops.”  (pp. 129-130)