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This paper was the winner of the 2003 Clinical Essay Prize awarded by the Educational Trust of the APP.
This paper explores the ways in which psychoanalytically-informed work undertaken in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Department was affected by the necessity of working with interpreter colleagues, and the way in which this work could be refined when it was thought about more clearly. Examples are provided of the sorts of difficulties which arose in the clinical encounter, and of the ways in which input from interpreters could enhance the work done. Dialogue which needs the presence of another worker who has a specific interpreting function is considered, and links are made to other therapeutic modalities such as group and marital therapy. The viability of psychoanalytically-informed work with interpreters is considered.
In this paper I discuss the sorts of difficulties encountered in work with interpreters in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Department, and my learning curve as I attempted to address those difficulties. I also try to show how my developing thoughts about the experiences I had while attempting this often complex work have shaped my clinical practice. Psychoanalytically-informed therapeutic work, while hindered by the necessity of working with an interpreter colleague, seems to be possible and, I hope, helpful.
The local-authority area where the work took place is a multicultural one which is hugely diverse. Where interpreters are needed, use is made of the hospital link-worker service or a privately-funded organization. The small Child and Adolescent Mental Health Department consists of a child psychiatrist, child and adolescent psychotherapists, family therapists and trainees. My role in the team is a clinical one: I am a psychoanalytically-trained adult