Language Shift and Bilinguals: Transference and Countertransference Implications

Lijtmaer, Ruth M.

doi:10.1521/jaap.1.1999.27.4.611

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The complex role of language from a psychoanalytic orientation must also include addressing transference and countertransference reactions in therapy. In recent years, there have been attempts to further our understanding of how language choice can influence these processes For instance, Lijtmaer (1999) pointed out the potential for transference when the client consciously chooses to work with a therapist who represents the "majority" culture and speaks the language of that culture. In essence, the client may want to speak only the therapist's language because it represents the new identity that the client may be striving for, eventually leading to idealizing the therapist.…”

Section: Contemporary Views On Therapy With Bilingual Clientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of language in therapy with the Spanish-English bilingual client.

Santiago-Rivera¹,

Altarriba²

2002

Professional Psychology: Research and Practice

109

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The clinical and counseling psychology profession has witnessed a steady increase in research on the development and application of Hispanic/Latino-centered therapeutic approaches; however, little attention has been given to incorporating the dynamics of a client's language background in treatment. The authors discuss the important role of language representation and emotions and the implications for conducting therapy with bilingual clients who speak Spanish and English. The contributions of psychoanalysis and psycholinguistics that have guided the research on language issues in counseling and therapy are presented, and future directions in research, training, and practice are outlined. 1 We use the term Hispanic/Latino for two reasons. First, the group term Hispanic was created by the Office of Management and Budget and is defined as a "person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture of origin" (Marín & Marín, 1991, p. 20). The purpose of creating this term was to categorize a group of people not by country of origin but by a common language-Spanish. Second, although the term Hispanic appears in most of the counseling and psychotherapy literature, the term Latino has been growing in popularity because it represents a political consciousness and a sense of ethnic pride, particularly among those residing in the United States. We choose to use both terms interchangeably throughout the article.

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Section: Contemporary Views On Therapy With Bilingual Clientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of language in therapy with the Spanish-English bilingual client.

Santiago-Rivera¹,

Altarriba²

2002

Professional Psychology: Research and Practice

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Half of our sample had fair to good knowledge of Italian, which may have attenuated the impact of the patient's otherness on the intersubjective atmosphere. However, the role of the linguistic sharing on the clinician's immediate perception of the patient is still unclear, since the available studies, mostly from psychotherapeutic settings, provided contradictory findings, with some studies suggesting that multilingual therapists may be facilitated in their attunement to foreign patients [57] and others indicating that the same language shift, even when the new language is proficiently spoken, may affect the spontaneity and the empathic resonance in bilingual settings [47,69,70]. Indeed, a nonnegligible part of human communication is prelinguistic, and we cannot exactly quantify to what extent the clinician's perceptions measured by the ACSE are DOI: 10.1159/000509489 strictly dependent on the verbal exchange.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clinician’s Subjective Experience in the Cross-Cultural Psychiatric Encounter

Fonzi¹,

Picardi

Monaco

et al. 2020

Psychopathology

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Introduction: The clinical encounter is still at the core of the psychiatric evaluation. Since the diagnostic process remains basically clinical in nature, several authors have addressed the complexity of the clinical reasoning process and highlighted the role played by intersubjective phenomena and clinician’s feelings. Some recent studies have supported the view of a significant link between the clinician’s subjective experience during the assessment and the diagnosis made. In a globalized world, this issue requires a careful reflection, since cultural differences may affect the intersubjective atmosphere of the encounter, which may indirectly influence the clinician’s thinking. Methods: We used a previously validated instrument, named Assessment of Clinician’s Subjective Experience (ACSE), to compare the clinician’s subjective experience during the evaluation of Italian patients with the subjective experience of the same clinician during the assessment of foreign patients. The 2 patient groups (n = 42 each) were individually matched for known potential confounders (age, sex, categorical diagnosis, and clinical severity). Results: We found no significant differences in mean scores on all ACSE dimensions (tension, difficulty in attunement, engagement, disconfirmation, and impotence), which suggests that cultural diversity did not substantially affect the clinician’s subjective experience. However, the lack of information about the native country and linguistic proficiency of about a quarter of foreign patients may have limited the possibility to detect subtle or specific differences, especially with regard to the clinician’s empathic attunement. Conclusions: Although further investigation is needed, our preliminary findings may have significant implications for the reflection upon the clinician’s empathic experience as well as pragmatic consequences for the act of psychiatric diagnosis in the cross-cultural encounter.

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“…When the level of the client's L2 is highly proficient, the consensus is that good outcomes can be achieved by monolingual therapists, providing multilingual and cultural issues are addressed and acknowledged, and expression in L1 narratives is encouraged (Santiago‐Rivera, 1995). Evidence also shows how monolingual therapists can act as transitional objects for multilingual clients, so that they can break ties with their past and form a new identity when this is beneficial (Lijtmaer, 1999). Although monolingual therapists may feel outside their comfort zone when trying to work strategically with multilingualism during sessions, having an awareness of the language role should allow them to be creative and use alternative strategies that can help the multilingual client (Santiago‐Rivera et al., 2009)—hence the importance of being culturally competent, acknowledging the language differences and having an awareness of the underlying psychodynamic implications of multilingualism; something that extends to training and supervision (Bowker & Richards, 2004; Costa, 2010).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monolingual therapists’ views and experiences of working with multilingual clients: An exploratory study

Calvo‐Rodríguez¹

2021

Couns and Psychother Res

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Behind the choice of topic for this small-scale study, there is a strong personal component. As a multilingual person who lives daily in more than one language, I have sometimes experienced having a dual sense of self that alters with the context, as Pérez Foster (1996b) perfectly described. My university studies in Philology also contributed to shape my firm belief that language is more than a means of communication, playing an important role in human development, identity and socio-political issues. Perhaps this explains why, when working with multilingual clients, I have at times encouraged them to use their own language if it felt therapeutically appropriate. Having

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Language Shift and Bilinguals: Transference and Countertransference Implications

Cited by 14 publications

References 28 publications

The role of language in therapy with the Spanish-English bilingual client.

The role of language in therapy with the Spanish-English bilingual client.

Clinician’s Subjective Experience in the Cross-Cultural Psychiatric Encounter

Monolingual therapists’ views and experiences of working with multilingual clients: An exploratory study

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