I'm using this to update both sides of an association but want to know if there is a more efficient way to do this. In this case, it is a self-referencing OneToMany parent/child association: public function setParent(Node $parent, $inverse = true) { $this->parent = $parent; if($inverse) $parent->addChild($this, false); } public function addChild(Node $child, $inverse = true) { if(!$this->children->contains($child)) { $this->children[] = $child; if($inverse) $child->setParent($this, false); } }