ABSTRACT

Clinical supervision provides a wonderful venue to learn from the transference and countertransference issues between the client and helping professional. Clinical supervision mirrors many aspects of the therapeutic relationship. Both are helping processes, both involve the use of the self as the agent of change, both are intimate relationships, and the task of both is to provide a container to reflect on thoughts and feelings. The author supervised Joanna, who was typically a very empathic and insightful student. This two-person model (Joanna and Derek as co-participants in their therapeutic relationship) views parallel process as more of a two-dyad/three-person paradigm among client, clinician/supervisee and supervisor. The relational model of parallel process is particularly helpful when thinking about the types of issues that develop when working with emotionally charged end-of-life and palliative care issues. Much of the literature on parallel process has been confined to the world of psychodynamic psychotherapy and, as such, can seem like a rarefied and esoteric concept.