Project

Interpreter-mediated Psychotherapy: Interaction and Perception, Process and Outcome

Code
G097123N
Duration
01 January 2023 → 31 December 2025
Funding
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Promotor-spokesperson
Research disciplines
  • Humanities
    • Discourse analysis
    • Pragmatics
    • Translation and interpretation sciences
  • Social sciences
    • Psychotherapy
Keywords
Interpreter-mediated communication in psychotherapy Process-oriented linguistic research on (interpreter-mediated) psychotherapy Outcome-oriented psychological research on (interpretermediated) psychotherapy
 
Project description

Due to current political and demographic developments, multilingual psychotherapy for refugees and migrants is becoming increasingly relevant. Interpreters are often indispensable in bridging the language barrier between patient and therapist. Their presence is, however, not without consequences: the dyadic relationship between therapists and patients becomes a triad. In this project we analyze how therapists, patients and interpreters co-construct the therapeutic relationship over the course of a therapy, which takes, on average, 12 sessions. More concretely, we analyze through which verbal and non-verbal communicative means the participants deploy, gain and negotiate trust and empathy, which are essential building blocks of the therapeutic relationship. We combine three different methods: along with interviews with the three parties involved, we will have them complete a questionnaire and we will conduct fine-grained analyzes of video-recorded therapeutical sessions. In an accompanying process of triangulation, we will analyze the data in a transdisciplinary team which combines research expertise from the fields of psychology, interpreting studies and linguistics.