Parallel process in bereavement support groups and supervision groups

This paper examines parallel process between clients and workers as a group phenomenon occurring in the milieux of support groups and concomitant supervision groups. We have observed that psychosocial processes are mutually reflected between these two settings. This phenomenon is examined in the context of work with the bereaved parents of men and women who died while serving in the Israeli armed forces. The process is described as it unfolds along two continua defined by two sets of polarities: (1) anger versus idealization; (2) competition versus cooperation. This is considered in regard to three principal roles of the participants in both of the groups: (1) as individual members of their group; (2) in their capacities as clients and workers; (3) as paired co-leaders of a support group or as bereaved couples. Obtaining a better understanding of parallel process in these settings may be useful in helping us to enhance and enlarge the scope of the coping capacities both of bereaved couples and of workers acting as group leaders in support groups of this type.