Psychotherapy © 2012 American Psychological Association

2012, Vol. 49, No. 3, 344 –346 0033-3204/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0029191

COMMENTARY

Some Thoughts About Parallel Process and Psychotherapy Supervision:

When Is a Parallel Just a Parallel?

C. Edward Watkins, Jr.

University of North Texas

In a way not done before, Tracey, Bludworth, and Glidden-Tracey (“Are there parallel processes in
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

psychotherapy supervision: An empirical examination,” Psychotherapy, 2011, advance online publica-

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

tion, doi.10.1037/a0026246) have shown us that parallel process in psychotherapy supervision can indeed
be rigorously and meaningfully researched, and their groundbreaking investigation provides a nice
prototype for future supervision studies to emulate. In what follows, I offer a brief complementary
comment to Tracey et al., addressing one matter that seems to be a potentially important conceptual and
empirical parallel process consideration: When is a parallel just a parallel?

Keywords: parallel process, psychotherapy supervision, reflection process, clinical supervision

When Searles (1955) first proposed the reflection process al-
most 60 years ago (i.e., the therapist’s reenactment of therapy
session material within the supervision situation), he probably had
little idea what impact that the concept would have for supervision
process. He accentuated that: “This reflection process is by no
means to be thought of as holding the center of the stage, in the
supervisory situation, at all times. Probably it comprises, in actual
practice, only a small proportion of the events which transpire in
supervisory hours” (p. 136). Dubbed the parallel process shortly
thereafter (Ekstein & Wallerstein, 1958), it has since gone on to
become “a dominant, if not the dominant (italics in original), idea
in the literature on supervision” (Rosbrow, 1997, p. 215) and the
“most influential conception in the area of psychodynamic super-
vision . . . ” (Binder & Strupp, 1997, p. 48). Although originating
from psychodynamic thought, parallel process appears today to
even be accepted and have currency within some supervisory
conceptualizations that are not specifically dynamic in nature
(Raichelson, Herron, Primavera, & Ramirez, 1997). While not
necessarily “holding the center of the stage,” parallel process does
indeed seem to hold a place of considerable eminence on the
contemporary stage of psychotherapy supervision (Mothersole,
1999).
In their article, Tracey, Bludworth, and Glidden-Tracey (this
issue, pp. 330 –343) presented what I view as a landmark super-
vision study of parallel process—which may well serve as a
prototype for all such future empirical efforts. The type of research
investigation that they conducted has been sorely needed: parallel
process in supervision, although possessing a high degree of clin-
ical validity, has lacked for an empirical base (Watkins, 2010,
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to C. Ed-
ward Watkins, Jr., Department of Psychology, University of North Texas,
1155 Union Circle # 311280, Psychology, UNT, Denton, TX 76203-5017.
E-mail: watkinsc@unt.edu
344
2011). In a way not done before, Tracey et al. have demonstrated
that the ever-challenging construct of parallel process (a) can be
rigorously and meaningfully studied and (b) appears to operate in
a bottom up, top down manner as evolving theory has suggested
(Doehrman, 1976; Gediman & Wolkenfeld, 1980). Their research
opens the door wide on the study of a supervisory process that for
far too long has seemingly been viewed as virtually impossible to
experimentally investigate; that view need stand no longer. But as
with any good research study, Tracey et al.’s work also raises a
number of thought-provoking questions for consideration. In at-
tempting to complement their findings and add some potentially
useful ideas to the parallel process mix, I would like to briefly
consider one particular issue that their research raised for me.
Are Parallels in Therapy and Supervision Processes
Always Parallel Process?
What precisely is parallel process in psychotherapy supervision
anyway? Is it to be any and every interpersonal parallel or simi-
larity that emerges across the therapy and supervision situations?
Or should it be a more specific concept that confines itself only to
interpersonal replications resulting from unconscious processing
and identificatory mechanisms? Much like a totalistic definition of
countertransference has not served us well practically or empiri-
cally in psychotherapy (i.e., where anything that the therapist
experiences vis-à-vis the patient is labeled countertransferential in
nature; Gelso & Hayes, 2007), I do not believe that a totalistic
definition of parallel process will serve us well practically or
empirically either. Parallels in the processes of therapy and super-
vision can indeed occur without those in any way being parallel
process manifestations at all.
“ . . . that things happen at the same time, say that both the
patient and the therapist are in a phase of opposition to authority,
does not necessarily denote the existence of a causal connection or
a parallel process” (Gordan, 1996, p. 138).
 PARALLEL PROCESS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY SUPERVISION
“ . . . be careful about assuming a parallel process at work, just
because both dyads enact similar transference and countertransfer-
ence constellations. . . . independently derived yet similar rela-
tional paradigms may arise coincidentally in each dyad” (Frawley-
O’Dea & Sarnat, 2001, p. 186).
Furthermore, some parallels may reflect nothing but the actual
realities present in each of the respective therapy and supervision
situations. What might be construed as parallel process can instead
be real process that parallels.
“the basic observation is a simple one. The patient wants some-
thing from the therapist that is not forthcoming. He or she is
displeased. This troubles the therapist, who, in turn, looks to the
supervisor for help that may or may not be forthcoming. The
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
therapist is displeased with the supervisor, who, in his (sic) turn,
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may be troubled and displeased with the supervisee and himself.
This is a common situation” (Schimel, 1984, p. 239).
Or consider the following rather typical therapy/supervision
parallel, an elaboration on the preceding example, that often can be
seen to emerge in supervision (also similar to Tracey et al.’s [this
issue] example in their introduction).
A female supervisee comes for supervision, indicating that she
does not know what to do with her male patient. Based on the
supervisee’s description, the patient is said to be stuck, unsure of
where to go or how to proceed, and asking for help in moving
forward. The supervisee explains that she has made a number of
reasonable suggestions to the patient, all of which seem to rou-
tinely be met with a “yes, but . . .” type of response. She feels
frustrated, unsure about what to do next, and asks the supervisor
for help. The supervisor listens attentively, attempts to better
understand the treatment situation, and when it seems appropriate,
suggests a couple of ideas for the supervisee to consider. The
supervisee responds with her own version of “Yes, but . . .,”
indicating that she had considered those ideas, tried them out, and
that they came to nothing. The supervisor suggests another possi-
bility, with another “Yes, but . . .” being the result. At that point,
the supervisor pulls back, feeling some frustration, and begins to
consider how to approach the supervisee’s and patient’s concerns
differently.
Is this an example of parallel process? To some degree has the
supervisee unknowingly taken on the personality style of the
patient and begun to enact it in supervision? Has the supervisor in
turn unwittingly adopted and begun to enact the therapist role? Or
could such an interaction be legitimately conceptualized solely as
two similar interpersonal helping processes in parallel—where the
supervisee straightforwardly presents her view of what is happen-
ing in psychotherapy (e.g., she had honestly already tried out the
interventions that the supervisor suggested and said so); the su-
pervisor strives to understand and accommodate to how best to
help the supervisee and her patient and, in doing so, initially
suggests a few reasonable (but already tried) interventions at the
outset to the supervisee; and once further understanding has been
achieved and appropriate accommodations have been made, they
are then more able to get in sync with the primary issues at hand
and better work together to effect change. The accommodation
process, which tends to occur and recur over the course of super-
vision, could simply be reflective of the supervisor and supervis-
ee’s ongoing efforts to struggle in concert to unravel the Gordian
knot of the patient’s problematic, repetitive life patterns—as op-
posed to the supervisee’s unconsciously and directly acting out the
345
patient’s areas of disturbance in supervision. Supervisor and su-
pervisee are joined together in two somewhat similar, related
helping processes (Wolkenfeld, 1990), both centered around and
highly focused on the patient’s particular set of life problems and
patterns. In that sense, how could there not be a plethora of parallel
possibilities between both helping situations, be they parallel pro-
cess or otherwise?
It seems to me that, although parallel process can indeed occur
during supervision, sometimes what has been labeled parallel
process has not been that at all. Perhaps it is good practice that a
growing number of questions have been raised about the univer-
sality, frequency, and predictability of parallel process phenomena
down through the decades (Baudry, 1993; Bromberg, 1981; Feiner,
1994; Hirsch, 1997; Miller & Twomey, 1999). “ . . . the notion of
parallel process may at times be a useful one . . . . [but it] can also
be used irresponsibly” (Schimel, 1984, p. 239). As Schimel (1984)
has indicated, therapeutic failure can be “dressed in the cloak of
understanding”; I would say that supervisory failure can be dressed
in that same cloak as well. Thus, it is my contention that: Parallels
in process instead of parallel process may often be the most
parsimonious explanation for what occurs in a fair number of
therapy/supervision situations, although that possibility has not
frequently been given emphasis in the supervision literature.
Meaningfully teasing out any such differences between parallel
process and process parallels would seem to be an important
empirical matter to consider. But to make that more likely, it may
well be that a more restrictive (as opposed to totalistic) definition
of parallel process—where focus, clarity, consistency, operation-
ality, and specificity are our guiding definitional desiderata—
would need to first be set in place. Although seemingly reasonable
and valid, such a suggestion is admittedly far easier said than done.
Nevertheless, without an empirically meaningful definition that is
measurable, consistent, and has explanatory (inclusionary/
exclusionary) power, any further research into this area may be
unnecessarily impeded. Tracey et al. (this issue) have nicely shown
us that this type of research can be done and be done well. Our next
experimental step would appear to be sorting out, targeting, and
effectively researching the particular types of parallel process—
conscious, preconscious, and unconscious (Frawley-O’Dea & Sar-
nat, 2001)—that we most wish to explore in the therapy/
supervision interface. But in doing that, the differentiation of
parallel process phenomena from naturally occurring process par-
allels would seem to be a fundamentally critical empirical distinc-
tion that ultimately must be made. Although parallel process is
reflective of processes in parallel, a parallel of processes may have
absolutely nothing to do with parallel process as we now think of
it. A cigar is sometimes just a cigar, and perhaps a parallel between
processes is sometimes just a parallel.
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Received April 17, 2012
Accepted May 21, 2012 䡲