Hi Sue
Something that co-counselling sometimes gives the opportunity to experience
is having sessions with people with people with whom you do not have a
language in common and without translation. Of course, in co-counselling
it is the client who is in charge so it does not matter whether the
counsellor understands the content of the session, they focus principally
on process. In practice, however, the counsellor picks up a great deal of
what is going on, even though they cannot understand the words of the
client. Interventions in co-counselling are fairly restricted, and can
often be made using gestures and body language.
I think that the terms 'translator' and 'interpreter' have different
meaning for linguists from those that counsellors might understand. A book
or article is translated. Interpreting is doing it live, i.e. between
speakers.
I have a friend who used to do interpreting and who was also trained in
counselling. They were very aware that when they were interpreting, e.g.
at a meeting, how and what they interpreted could make a big difference to
how things proceeded, and was able to use this to good effect.
So I guess that it may be as well to see how much you can pick up from your
client directly. It occurs to me that it may help if the interpreter sits
or stands behind you, if necessary slightly to one side so that the client
can see them, so that the client communicates directly towards you and you
are not inclined to look at or speak to the interpreter. But you have
probably already though of this.
Best wishes
John
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