Mental Health Practitioners Who Work With Immigrant Clients and Interpreters
Mental Health Practitioners Who Work With Immigrant Clients and Interpreters
Loading...
Issue Date
2024-11
Authors
Ayyash, Mohammad
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Developed countries such as Canada have a growing number of immigrants, many of whom encounter mental health challenges and usually face barriers to accessing mental health services because of their limited English proficiency, which necessitates the use of interpreters. In this study the author addressed the impact of the presence of interpreters on the therapeutic process in working with immigrant clients. Utilising the Campinha-Bacote model of cultural competency as a framework, the author conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) and drew on seven electronic databases (EBSCO, JSTOR, Francis Online Mental Health and Social Care Collection, Google Scholar, Mendeley Taylor, ProQuest, and PubMed) to identify relevant journal articles from 2017 to 2024. A total of 19 peer-reviewed articles met the inclusion criteria. The findings are organised into five major themes: communication, interpreter role, therapeutic alliance, emotional impact, and training and support. The results indicate that the presence of an interpreter significantly impacts the therapeutic process and presents both opportunities and challenges. Interpreters can enhance communication and cultural understanding and facilitate therapeutic alliances, but they can also present complexities related to communication challenges, role dynamics, triadic relationship challenges, and emotional burdens. The study underscores the need for psychotherapists and interpreters to receive training and support to address these challenges effectively. Furthermore, psychotherapists must have cultural-competency skills and adopt culturally sensitive approaches in their interpreter-mediated psychotherapy. The recommendations include future research to focus on standardised training for practitioners and interpreters and further investigate the long-term effects of interpreter-mediated psychotherapy on treatment outcomes.
Description
Keywords
interpreter-mediated psychotherapy , cultural competency , triadic therapeutic relationship , therapeutic alliance , immigrant
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States , openAccess