When a client develops an attraction: successful resolution versus boundary violation

Psychiatric mental health nursing in correctional institutes is an exciting field, presenting the correctional nurse with a number of challenges. A challenge of particular significance is that encountered when a client develops an attraction to a nurse. Nursing education traditionally has not equipped nurses with the theoretical knowledge or experience to address this phenomenon in clinical practice. Consequently, attractions may not be successfully resolved, resulting in boundary violations that leave the correctional nurse feeling battered. Although attraction in the therapeutic relationship is a well-documented phenomenon in the psychosocial literature, nursing has not addressed this issue sufficiently. Only when the precipitating factors are defined clearly from a sociocultural context, which includes the profession and the correctional environment, can interventions for implementation be identified. The socialization of nurses, how nursing conceptualizes professionalism, gender issues, the atmosphere of the correctional environment and the potential for dual relationships that stem from the multiple roles of the nurse, are factors that the author contends contribute to a lack of boundary setting and maintenance in the nurse-client therapeutic relationship. Consequently, this results in difficulties in assisting a client to resolve attraction successfully.