In observing people’s everyday interactions, many might question why some people adopt a relatively insensitive attitude when invading others’ physical boundaries. This chapter will discuss one of the most fundamental concepts in developmental psychology, physical and emotional boundaries formed during maturation or personality formation.
In a community primarily composed of family members, where everyone trusts one another, no one worries about locking their doors or gates on leaving the house, safe knowing that family members dominate that space. They may touch another person’s shoulder or head without permission, in a gesture of friendship or a display of affection, at a first meeting. As parents, they may enter their child’s bedroom without knocking. Likewise, in some rural towns in parts of East Asia, South Asia, or Africa, there are no walls between houses, and people are always aware of what their neighbors are doing. When each person in society is considered an in-group member, they don’t worry about physical boundaries between rooms or houses since each member is secure in one another’s company.
People who normalize physical intrusion into others’ space may unwittingly do so due to unconscious emotional reasons. Given the particular emotional stage they are at, such people assume it is natural to share space with others and that it is forgivable for people to invade their boundaries as long as it is not with intentional harm in mind. They also easily forgive others’ physical and emotional transgressions against them. It is interesting to see that other people at different stages of emotional development may view such actions as violations of their space, demarcating them as “rude” behavior. Why do we need these boundaries, how are they formed, and what roles do the boundaries play in shaping one’s personality?
Anna Freud (1960) and Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1982) tried to explain emotional boundaries between individuals using different theoretical frameworks (as cited in Parens,” 2006). Bowlby, an attachment theorist, views boundary formation from a systems-based model, wherein boundaries form through an existing Self-Object Dyad from childhood. Conversely, Anna Freud, an ego psychologist, uses a linear, sequential interactional development model that claims that boundaries start from a Self-Object Unity through the relationship between the child and the parent. Despite the tension between these theorists, Parens (2006) assessed that both approaches effectively explain boundary formation.
Figure 4A. Illustrates how the proposed model integrates both Anna Freud’s linear sequential interactional development model, seen at Stages 1 and 2, and Bowlby’s systems model, seen at Stage 4, and how these theories co-exist. The Self (or Id in the Freudian term) and the Object are fused, or the Self is contained in the Object as a dyadic unit at Stage 1. Then, the Self at Stage 2 (or Ego), while building an inflated self, tries to separate from or rebel against the Object. The Self at Stage 3 (or Superego in Freudian terms) tries to re-approach the Object. At Stage 4, the Self is formed to establish independence from the Object or the collective mother group by completing the separation-individuation process. Finally, at Stage 5, the independent selves, the Self and Object, and others collaborate to actualize their shared goals.