In plain language
When therapists are supervised, something curious often happens: the relationship dynamics playing out between a therapist and their client get unconsciously re-enacted between the therapist and their supervisor. This is known as "parallel process". A skilled supervisor can notice these re-enactments and use them as a powerful learning opportunity. This conceptual paper asks whether the same idea can be deliberately harnessed in a newer setting: coaching for mental health practitioners.
The authors examine how coaching and clinical practice overlap and differ, and describe a continuum of coaching from skills acquisition through to "transformational" coaching, which aims to shift how a person thinks, feels, and behaves at a deeper level. They then propose expanding the idea of parallel process beyond relationship patterns to include parallel protocols: having practitioners personally experience the same recovery tools (such as the Collaborative Recovery Model's Life Journey Enhancement Tools for clarifying values, setting goals, and making action plans) that they use with their clients.
The paper argues that the more parallels are engaged consciously, the more coaching will normalise the experience of change and build practitioners' empathy for clients. For example, a practitioner who resists completing their own action plans in coaching gains first-hand insight into why clients resist therapeutic homework. This matters because mental health staff face high stress and burnout, and coaching that develops the whole person, not just their techniques, may improve both practitioner wellbeing and the transfer of recovery-oriented skills into everyday client work.
Key findings
- Parallel process, traditionally described in clinical supervision, travels both "up the line" (from client-practitioner relationship into supervision) and "down the line" (supervisor practices transferring into client work), and can be purposefully applied to coaching mental health practitioners.
- Coaching and clinical practice overlap far more than traditional accounts suggest; treating them as entirely distinct restricts coaches from drawing on the rich clinical literature on relationship dynamics, alliance ruptures, and countertransference.
- The paper proposes expanding parallel process to include "parallel protocols": practitioners using the same change tools (values and strengths clarification, goal setting, action planning, progress review) in their own coaching that they use with clients.
- Two coaching approaches are contrasted in an implementation project for the Collaborative Recovery Model: skills acquisition coaching (case review and problem solving) versus transformational coaching (practitioners apply the LifeJET protocols to their own lives).
- Purposeful parallel processing is argued to build empathy and a shared language of experience: practitioners who go through their own change process, including resistance to writing goals or completing action plans, can better normalise these struggles for clients.
- Working with parallel processes through mindful reflection, relationship management skills, and parallel change protocols may reduce alliance ruptures and increase the transfer of coaching interventions into practice with clients.
How to cite
APA
Crowe, T. P., Oades, L. G., Deane, F. P., Ciarrochi, J., & Williams, V. C. (2011). Parallel processes in clinical supervision: Implications for coaching mental health practitioners. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 9(2), 56–66.
BibTeX
@article{crowe2011parallel,
author = {Crowe, Trevor P. and Oades, Lindsay G. and Deane, Frank P. and Ciarrochi, Joseph and Williams, Virginia C.},
title = {Parallel processes in clinical supervision: Implications for coaching mental health practitioners},
journal = {International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring},
year = {2011},
volume = {9},
number = {2},
pages = {56--66}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version.