Mind your language: working with interpreters in healthcare settings and therapeutic encounters

The National Health Service and specialist agencies within the UK are striving to ensure that they offer services that are inclusive, accessible and appropriate to all users seeking their services. As such, language interpreters will be required to work alongside health professionals to ensure that service users who are not fluent in the English language can gain full access to health and therapeutic provisions. In addition to reasons of governance, equity of service provision and national legislation there are also sound clinical practice reasons with respect to facilitating work with interpreters. Language is not merely a neutral, descriptive medium but has an active role in shaping and constructing how people view and experience the world. The range of meaning-making possibilities that lay or professional language opens up is always already greatly indebted to the speaker's local culture and has particular relevance in the therapeutic encounter. Working with an interpreter can be a challenging but enriching experience. The benefits of working in close partnership with an interpreter are discussed both at generic level when working as a therapist/clinician in any adult mental health setting and, more specifically, when working with sex and relationships problems using clinical material as illustrations.