Sign-Language Interpretation in Psychotherapy with Deaf Patients

Sporadic encounters with deaf patients seeking psychotherapy present a challenge to general clinicians outside of specialized services for the deaf. Skills for working with people who do not share one’s own language mode and culture are not routinely taught in most training programs, so clinicians may be unprepared when they first encounter a deaf patient. While it would be ideal to be able to match deaf patients with therapists fluent in their preferred language mode, this is often not feasible in smaller centers. Working with a trained professional sign-language interpreter can be a productive alternative, as long as patient, therapist, and interpreter understand and are comfortable with the process. Peer-reviewed literature on sign language interpretation in psychotherapy is sparse, but some practical guidelines can be gleaned from it and supplemented by information provided by the deaf community through the Internet. This paper arose from one psychiatric resident’s first experience of psychotherapy working with a sign-language interpreter, and summarizes the literature search that resulted from a quest for understanding of deaf culture and experience, of the unique characteristics of sign language, and of the effects on the therapeutic relationship of the presence of the interpreter.