Parallel process: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Phenomenon noted in clinical supervision of therapy}}

{{other uses}}

'''Parallel process''' is a phenomenon noted in [[clinical supervision]] by therapist 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.

==Origins and nature==

Attention to parallel process first emerged in the nineteen-fifties. The process was termed reflection by [[Harold Searles]] in 1955,<ref>[http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/process.htm Parallel process in supervision]</ref> and two years later T. Hora (1957) first used the actual term parallel process – {{Ndash}}emphasising that it was rooted in an unconscious identification with the client/patient which could extend to tone of voice and behaviour.<ref>S. Power, ''Nursing Supervision'' (1999) p. 162</ref> The supervisor 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.<ref>G. O. Gabbard, ''Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy'' (2010) p. 195</ref>

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.<ref>P. Clarkson, ''On Psychotherapy'' (1993) p. 202</ref> Even then, however, careful examination of the material may still illuminate the original therapeutic difficulty, as reflected in the parallel situation.<ref>G. O. Gabbard, ''Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy'' (2010) p. 196-197</ref>

==See also==