Unveiling the experience of bilingual child and adolescent psychotherapists working in their second language: An interpretative phenomenological analysis

This study explores the lived experiences of bilingual child and adolescent psychotherapists providing psychotherapy in their second language, especially with monolingual patients. In this context, the word “bilingual” refers to a person who has reached a proficient level in a second language in late adolescence or later. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 6 bilingual child and adolescent psychotherapists from different countries, with clinical experience ranging from trainee to highly experienced (approximately over 15 years of qualified work). The data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). From the data analysis, 4 group experiential themes emerged across participants: navigating cultural and linguistic challenges in therapy; the impact of therapist’s foreignness into the transference; coming from another country: the painful journey of immigrant child and adolescent psychotherapists; therapist sense of self: where do I belong? The main results of the research evidence that language-related challenges might have an impact on the transference relationship, as patients can project into the psychotherapist’s accent and culture. However, bilingual child and adolescent psychotherapists become more competent and confident as they conduct therapy in their second language and use the tool of transference to overcome some language-related challenges in the therapy over time. The results also show that being an immigrant child and adolescent psychotherapist can have an impact on the transference and on the own identity of participants, who need to navigate across two different languages and cultures. It is argued that, due to the increase in bilingual child and adolescent psychotherapists and bilingual psychotherapists in general, more emphasis should be placed on encouraging a dialogue about bilingualism and the difficulties it may bring to the transference.