Team Effort – Training Therapists to Work with Interpreters as a Collaborative Team

This paper considers components of a framework for relational training for counsellors who work with interpreters. Where counsellors and clients cannot be linguistically matched, they will need to incorporate an interpreter into their therapeutic relationship. Counsellors are often unprepared to work in this way. ‘Mothertongue multi-ethnic counselling service’, a UK counselling agency has developed and piloted an in-house training for counsellors and interpreters. Components of this training in how to work collaboratively with interpreters are considered in this paper. These components address the need for a collaborative relationship between counsellor and interpreter, consideration of dynamics in a triangular relationship and a clear delineation of responsibilities. Recommendations are made for the development of a training curriculum and models of clinical supervision for counsellors and interpreters who want to work together collaboratively. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.