ABSTRACT
In author's working experience as a therapist, interpreters have enabled me to work in a more profound way with an individual and have deepened his relationship with a client, rather than detracted from it. When seated at closure, clients have described how important it has been to speak in their chosen language or reflected that they have been able to freely express themselves when speaking in their mother tongue. However fluently any individual speaks a language, we know that to say any particular words at any given moment in our first language can often mean only one thing, and often its meaning is impossible to translate. This is indeed the nature and beauty of language; it is not just words. A phrase loaded with cultural and personal context can feel impossible to explain to anyone who does not share the language or culture, and loses both its power and meaning when we endeavour to explain it.
