Bilingual Families: Using Therapist-Facilitated Interpretation in Psychotherapy

Abstract

Families initiate psychotherapy with a narrative that identifies a mythological explanation for their suffering. Through narrative therapy, a therapist is able to reframe this mythological narrative into a theoretically grounded narrative that is able to provide healing. The process in which a narrative becomes reframed involves the use of language which can be hindered if no common language is available within the family. Without a common language, narratives are influenced by incomplete subjective experiences which are dulled by the cognitive effort it takes to speak and understand in a second learned language. This article discusses the challenges in working with a bilingual family containing different levels of language proficiencies among its members. I will use this case study to discuss therapist-assisted interpretation which provides each member the opportunity to influence the new narrative with an authentic subjective experience that would otherwise be absent without the therapist’s ability to interpret.