How Boundaries are Developed Summary and Analysis

The reader first meets Tim in the beginning of this chapter. Though Tim works hard at his job, his children call him Mr. Phantom. Through his fear of letting people down, he neglects his family's needs. Finally, when confronted by his wife, he confesses that, all his life, he feared letting people down. Often, the authors say, the answers to one's boundary problems lie in one's past.

Boundaries develop over the whole of one's life. Important stages occur in everyone's childhood that shape one's attitude towards boundaries for the rest of one's life.

The stages, beginning from birth, start with bonding. In the first months of life, an infant learns that a parent will care for the infant's needs. Wendy, another example, lacks the ability to say no to her mother. Without a relationship that...