Product DescriptionAre Your Boundaries Being Violated?Boundaries separate us from others physically and emotionally. In fact, they are essential for our mental and physical health as well as for developing healthy relationships. Yet every day, people's boundaries are violated by friends, family, or coworkers. Despite the importance of personal boundaries many people are unaware of how or when these very important lines are crossed.Which of the following are boundary violations?Esther tells Betty a secret Mary told her.Your therapist invites you to go for coffee.Your boss wants to know the details of your personal life.Your boss asks you if you'd like a hug.Mom tells little Debbie about her troubles with Dad.Your new neighbor pats you on the bottom as he turns away.Your mother makes a comment about your being overweight.All but one of the above incidents violate boundaries (your boss asks you if you'd like a hug). In Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin, Anne Katherine explains what healthy boundaries are, how to recognize if your personal boundaries are being violated, and what you can do to protect yourself.For anyone who has walked away from a conversation, a meeting, or a visit with others feeling violated and not understanding why, this is a book that can help.About the AuthorAnne Katherine, now retired from her forty years as a psychotherapist, is a screenwriter, ghost writer, and National Park ranger. She is the author of numerous titles, including Boundaries, Where to Draw the Line, The Yesterday Doctor, and Stalking Yosemite.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Chapter 1THE WALL BETWEENLaura's StoryI was born a month premature. In those days, preemies were put in an incubator and left alone. In my imagination, armed with what I've gleaned from years of therapy, I can return to those first days. What I see first looks like a tunnel with a clear roof. I am looking up through the incubator. A bright light shines all the time. The walls beyond are plain and white. I feel cut off from everyone and don't know who I belong to. The only time I am touched is to be cleaned.Recently, I asked my mother how much she held me those weeks we were still in the hospital after my birth."Why, I held you all the time!" she said."How much?" I insisted. All the time was not my memory."Why, whenever they'd let me.""How often was that?" I persisted."I held you every time they brought you to me to be fed" she said. "Twenty minutes, three times a day."An hour a day my first three weeks of life. My baby self knew that wasn't nearly enough.That touch deprivation continued. When I was six months old my father left my mother, so she left me with my grandparents and took off. My grandparents were not the most demonstrative people in the world. Maybe I saw them kiss each other once in all the years I lived with them. Me, they never touched.When I was ten my mother remarried and decided she wanted me back. The second night I was in their house -- my mother worked nights -- my stepfather came into my room and got into bed with me.After never being touched or held, I felt hands on my body. His touch made me feel sick inside. Something told me this wasn't right but nothing had ever told me that my feelings mattered or that I had a choice about anything. So I put up with it.I remember the first time a boy touched me. I was thirteen, he was sixteen. We were at a teen dance and all I could think about was that I finally had a boyfriend. He danced with me and kept his arm around me all night. Was I jubilant? Was I thrilled? No, I was terrified. The only kind of touch I'd ever known disgusted me.This was a nice boy who was completely proper and respectful, but when he put his arm across my shoulders I felt sick. My heart was beating so loudly from fear I could hear its pounding cadence in my ears. Far from enjoying my first healthy experience with a boy, my heart beat like that far into the

We ship at a flat rate of $9.99 per order. Orders $35 and up ship free of charge.