Communication Through Translation : An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Mental Health Professionals' Experiences of Working With Interpreters

Sammanfattning: The current study explores the experiences of mental health care professionals in Sweden who conduct therapy with the assistance of an interpreter. Seven participants took part in semi-structured interviews that were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, 1996). Three main themes emerged from the analysis of the interview transcripts: (1) communication and translation - highlighting the communicative challenges and benefits that arise when using an interpreter, (2) the interpreter as a person and as a professional - describing the variation of interpreters in terms of behavior, personality, roles, and professionalism, and their impact on psychological treatment, and (3) dynamics and relations - featuring the interpreter’s impact on the dynamics and the process of building a patient-therapist alliance. The results show that all participants find it difficult to determine the accuracy of the translation, and several techniques used by the clinician to ensure a correct translation were pointed out. Moreover, findings highlight the essentiality of non-verbal cues and body language in communication and that the role and the behavior, in addition to several personal factors of the interpreter has an impact on the patient-therapist alliance and therapy dynamics. In addition, the study illuminates the patient’s impact on the interpreter as many interpreters themselves have been through traumatic experiences, which in turn may affect the therapeutic process. The findings of the current study show how important it is for clinicians, mental health services, and interpreting services to take the interpreters’ impact on the clinician, the patient, and the therapeutic outcome  into account. The study aims to contribute to a better understanding of clinicians’ experiences of working with interpreters to improve the use of - and collaboration with - interpreters and thereby raise the standard of psychological treatment for refugees and asylum seekers.