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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Parallel process</span></span>
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</style><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">For other uses, see <a href="Parallel_process_(disambiguation)" class="mw-redirect mw-disambig" title="Parallel process (disambiguation)">Parallel process (disambiguation)</a>.</div>
<p><b>Parallel process</b> is a phenomenon noted in <a href="Clinical_supervision" title="Clinical supervision">clinical supervision</a> by therapist and supervisor, whereby the therapist recreates, or parallels, the client's problems by way of relating to the supervisor. The client's <a href="Transference" title="Transference">transference</a> and the therapist's <a href="Countertransference" title="Countertransference">countertransference</a> thus re-appear in the mirror of the therapist/supervisor relationship.
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Origins_and_nature">Origins and nature</h2></div>
<p>Attention to parallel process first emerged in the nineteen-fifties. The process was termed reflection by <a href="Harold_Searles" title="Harold Searles">Harold Searles</a> in 1955,<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> 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.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> 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.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>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.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Even then, however, careful examination of the material may still illuminate the original therapeutic difficulty, as reflected in the parallel situation.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2></div>
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<ul><li><a href="Acting_in" title="Acting in">Acting in</a></li>
<li><a href="Acting_out" title="Acting out">Acting out</a></li>
<li><a href="Joseph_J._Sandler" title="Joseph J. Sandler">Joseph J. Sandler</a></li></ul></div><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1266661725">
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<li class="portalbox-entry"><span class="portalbox-image"><span class="skin-invert-image noviewer" typeof="mw:File"><span></span></span></span><span class="portalbox-link"><a href="Portal%3APsychology" title="Portal:Psychology">Psychology portal</a></span></li>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>
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<li id="cite_note-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-1">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/process.htm">Parallel process in supervision</a></span>
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<li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">S. Power, <i>Nursing Supervision</i> (1999) p. 162</span>
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<li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">G. O. Gabbard, <i>Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy</i> (2010) p. 195</span>
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<li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-4">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">P. Clarkson, <i>On Psychotherapy</i> (1993) p. 202</span>
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<li id="cite_note-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-5">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">G. O. Gabbard, <i>Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy</i> (2010) p. 196-197</span>
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Further_reading">Further reading</h2></div>
<ul><li>H. F. Searles, "The Informational Value Of The Supervisor's Emotional Experience" <i>Psychiatry</i> (1955) 18:135-146.</li>
<li>M J G Doehrman, "Parallel processes in supervision and psychotherapy" <i>Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic</i> (1976) 40:3-104</li>
<li>H. K. Gedimer "The parallelism phenomenon in psychoanalysis and supervision" <i>Psychoanalytic Quarterly</i> (1980)49:234-255</li></ul></div><!--htdig_noindex--><div><div class="zim-footer">
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