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    Psychotherapy across languages: beliefs, attitudes and practices of monolingual and multilingual therapists with their multilingual patients

    Costa, B. and Dewaele, Jean-Marc (2012) Psychotherapy across languages: beliefs, attitudes and practices of monolingual and multilingual therapists with their multilingual patients. Language and Psychoanalysis (1), pp. 18-40. ISSN 2049-324X.

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    Abstract

    The present study investigates beliefs, attitudes and practices of 101 monolingual and multilingual therapists in their interactions with multilingual patients. We adopted a mixed-method approach, using an on-line questionnaire with 27 closed questions which were analysed quantitatively and informed questions in interviews with one monolingual and two multilingual therapists. A principal component analysis yielded a four-factor solution accounting for 41% of the variance. The first dimension, which explained 17% of variance, reflects therapists’ attunement towards their bilingual patients (i.e., attunement versus collusion). Further analysis showed that the 18 monolingual therapists differed significantly from their 83 bi- or multilingual peers on this dimension. The follow up interviews confirmed this result. Recommendations based on these findings are made for psychotherapy training and supervision to attend to a range of issues including: the psychological and therapeutic functions of multi/bilingualism; practice in making formulations in different languages; the creative therapeutic potential of the language gap.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
    Depositing User: Jean-Marc Dewaele
    Date Deposited: 19 Oct 2012 09:11
    Last Modified: 09 Aug 2023 12:31
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/5275

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