Author aims to help people ‘connect again’ in·meaningful relationships in best-seller follow-up

Having co-authored many a related title with Henry Cloud, clinical psychologist John Townsend now offers a follow-up to the book that started it all—1992’s Boundaries, now considered a Christian self-help classic. 

Building on the earlier’s book’s principles, Beyond Boundaries: Learning to Trust Again in Relationships helps those who have set limits in their lives “jump back in the relationship pool and have a good, meaningful relationship and yet not get hurt,” Townsend said.

Much of the author’s time these days is occupied with leadership and executive-coaching work, and so he observed the need for a specific kind of Boundaries book. 

“What I began noticing was that when people would have a difficult relationship—maybe a bad relationship at work or something in their family—they kind of go into a cave for a while,” he said. “In that cave, they would do their jobs and they’d be with their families and do their normal life, but part of their heart was very guarded and not very open. I wanted to write a book to help people come out of that, to be able to connect again.”

Although Cloud and Townsend have written some “Boundaries” books together—Boundaries in Marriage, Boundaries in Dating, Boundaries With Kids—Townsend wrote this one alone, as he did with Boundaries With Teens. However, Cloud’s name will be on the book. 

“This was a book that I really liked and I liked the idea of,” Townsend said. “In fact, when Henry and I talked about it, he loved the idea and he agreed to write the foreword.”

With this book, Townsend hopes that people will learn “to enter into relationships in the way that God describes relationships—where they get the most out of opening their heart and having someone there with them and for them,” he said. “It could be marriage; it could be dating; it could be a friendship; it could be a family relationship; it could be someone at work—but to be able to experience all the benefits and blessings that all of us get at a vulnerability and intimacy in someone there for us.”

Filled with true relationship stories, Beyond Boundaries addresses such topics as knowing when a past relationship is ready for risk, how to become attracted to the right type of person and how to reap the rewards of strong, healthy relationships. It offers skills and tools to people who “need to say, ‘I’m ready for relationship and I’m ready to be open and move beyond my protective boundaries.’ ”

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