Parallel process

Parallel process is a phenomenon noted between therapist/social worker and supervisor, whereby the therapist recreates, or parallels, the client's problems by way of relating to the supervisor.

The client's transference and the therapist's countertransference thus re-appear in the mirror of the therapist/supervisor relationship, and may be usefully studied there.

Origins and nature

Attention to parallel process first emerged in the nineteen-fifties. The process was termed reflection by Harold Searles in 1955,[1] and two years later T. Hora (1957) first used the actual term parallel process - emphasising that it was rooted in an unconscious identification with the client/patient which could extend to tone of voice and behaviour.[2] The supervisee thus enacts the central problem of the therapy in the supervision, potentially opening up a process of containment and solution, first by the supervisor and then by the therapist.[3]

Alternatively, the supervisor's own countertransference may be activated in the parallel process, to be reflected in turn between supervisor and consultant, or back into the original patient/helper dyad.[4] Even then, however, careful examination of the material may still illuminate the original therapeutic difficulty, as reflected in the parallel situation.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Parallel process in supervision
  2. ↑ S. Power, Nursing Supervision (1999) p. 162
  3. ↑ G. O. Gabbard, Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (2010) p. 195
  4. ↑ P. Clarkson, On Psychotherapy (1993) p. 202
  5. ↑ G. O. Gabbard, Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (2010) p. 196-197

Further reading

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