What are the differences?
Knowing the differences between personal and professional relationships can help you recognize when professional boundaries between the two may be blurred or crossed.
Characteristic
|
Professional
(nurse-client)
|
Personal
(casual, friendship, romantic, sexual)
|
|
Behaviour
|
Regulated by a code of ethics and professional standards. Framed by Agency policy.
|
Guided by personal values and beliefs. |
|
Remuneration
|
Nurse most often paid to provide care to client, but may also act in an official nursing volunteer role
|
No payment for being in the relationship.
|
|
Length
|
Time-limited for the length of the client’s need for nursing care.
|
May last a lifetime.
|
|
Location
|
Place defined and limited to where nursing care is provided.
|
Place unlimited; often undefined.
|
|
Purpose
|
Nurse provides care within a defined role and follows an establish plan of care in meeting the client’s needs.
|
Pleasure, interest-directed.
|
|
Structure
|
Nurse provides care/service to client.
|
Spontaneous, unstructured.
|
|
Power
|
Unequal: nurse has more power due to authority, knowledge, influence and access to privileged information about client.
|
Relatively equal.
|
|
Responsibility for
|
Nurse (not client) responsible for establishing and maintaining professional relationship.
|
Equal responsibility to establish and maintain.
|
|
Preparation for
|
Nurse requires formal education, knowledge, preparation, orientation and training.
|
Does not require formal knowledge, preparation, orientation and training.
|
|
Time spent
|
Nurse gives care within outlined hours of work/volunteerism.
|
Personal choice for how much time is spent in the relationship.
|
Adapted from Milgrom, J. (1992).
Boundaries in professional relationships: a training manual. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Walk-In Counseling Centre.