The Effects of Visual Media on Participants' Boundary Expectations

The purpose of this study was to examine participants' expectations of psychotherapeutic boundaries and the influence of the media in the creation of these expectations. Four hundred forty seven Old Dominion undergraduates completed an online survey consisting of five separate scales: Exposure to Cinetherapy Scale, Exposure to Cinematic Boundary Infringements Scale, Boundary Expectation Scale, Past Therapy Experiences Scale, and Demographic Questionnaire. Bivariate correlations were calculated and exposure to cinetherapy was found to be significantly, positively related to participants' perceptions of the frequency of various boundary infringements. A principle components analysis was also computed to examine the underlying structure of participant responses. Four factors were found and used to create subscales representing out-of-office social, exploitative, emotional and in-office social relationship infringements. Exposure to cinetherapy was compared to the subscale scores for participants perceptions of the frequency, appropriateness, and harmfulness of each factor, revealing positive relationships between exploitative relationship infringements and perceptions of harm, and in-office social and emotional relationship infringements and perceptions of frequency and appropriateness. Only perceptions of the frequency and appropriateness of emotional relationship infringements were significantly positively correlated with the measure of exposure to cinematic boundary infringements. Future research could entail using the subscales to further examine the relationship between emotional boundary infringements and participants perceptions of therapy and media exposure and less-known boundary infringements.