What is the experience of the therapist and parent worker dyad in the therapeutic work with racially marginalised families?

The relationship between children’s therapists and parent workers represents an underexplored dynamic within the existing literature. This research explores the experience of this therapeutic dyad, examining the role of transference and countertransference within the relationship, and how these processes shift when working with racially marginalised families where trauma is linked to migration, displacement, and colonialism. To investigate these questions, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with four pairs of child psychotherapists each pair comprising of a child’s therapist and a parent worker and analysed the data using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. This led to the identification of three key themes. The first, ‘Being with trauma: somatic and emotional responses in the dyad', explores participant’s somatic and emotional responses, including racial injury and racial trauma. The second theme, ‘Taking up the role: authority, containment and the working relationship', examines the development of the therapeutic alliance between the patient and therapist, and between parent and parent worker as well as the experience of working as a team, including the challenges of taking up authority within the dyad. The final theme ‘In the room: participants’ experience of sameness and difference' analyses how participants used the psychotherapy model to help make sense of racial, gender and class similarities and differences.