The Forum meets twice a year online or in London. There is no charge for attendance at the Forum. If you wish to be added to the mailing list for the Forum, please email: beverley@pasaloproject.org
Next Bilingual Therapist & Interpreter Forum meeting online is on Thursday July 7th, 2022, 5pm to 7pm (UK time)
The aftermath for interpreters in highly demanding emotional situations
This event tells a story. It begins with the experience of interpreters and the aftermath from their work on their professional and their personal lives. It ends with an account of effectively addressing this aftermath.
In the first part of the Forum, we will focus on the aftermath of two very different situations.
- Interpreting in the context of war and war crimes
- Interpreting in Child Protection contexts
There will be a short break part-way through the session and time for questions and answers at the end.
The Forum meeting will begin promptly at 5pm and close at 7pm. A Zoom link for the meeting will be sent nearer the time to those people who are on the Bilingual Forum mailing list. If you would like to be added to the list please send an email to: beverley@pasaloproject.org
Speakers
Annie Bougault De Benedictis is a conference interpreter and member of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC). She has a Postgraduate diploma in conference interpreting (PCL London) and a Master in Interpreter training from ETI in Geneva.
She worked as a staff court interpreter and interpreter trainer at the International Criminal Court in The Hague from 2007 till 2021. She is now a freelance interpreter with the ICC and other international organisations.
Guida Shields, a Portuguese interpreter, was drawn into interpreting as a way to give people a voice. In 2010 she completed the DPSI, and she has been interpreting for nearly 40 years in various fields, but Health is her preferred setting.
After training as a psychotherapist Beverley Costa set up Mothertongue multi-ethnic counselling service (2000-2018) for multilingual clients and founded The Pásalo Project in 2017 www.pasaloproject.org She is a Senior Practitioner Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London.
Irina Norton is a conference and public service interpreter registered with NRPSI with over 17 years’ experience in the interpreting industry, who also works as a business consultant. Irina holds an MA in Interpreting, DPI and M.Sc. in Geology-Hydrogeology. For the past two years she has been serving as the Chairman of the Association of Interpreters and Translators (AIT) and is an Incorporation Director of AIT.
Marina Burgess was born in Russia, to parents who spoke different dialects of their own native language. Their mutually common language was Russian which became her own native language. She studied English at university and has been working as a language teacher and interpreter in Russia, Hungary and the UK for over 30 years.
Zora Jackman, MCIL MITI DPSI is a qualified public service interpreter with over 15 years’ experience. She has been teaching interpreting at Cardiff University for the past 12 years.
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Previous Bilingual Forum meetings
Bilingual Forum Thursday November 18th, 2021 (5pm to 6.30pm UK time)
"The Multilingual Experience of Children and Young People" Perspectives from Clinical Psychology and Speech and Language Therapy
Bilingual Forum Tuesday April 13th, 2021
“The languages we use and the languages we lose – implications for psychological therapies”
Language loss across generations Dr Susan Samata, author of the Cultural Memory of Language Susan’s current research interests are in the role of language loss, or attrition, as part of a wider ecology of language.
Negotiating the language(s) for psychotherapy talk Dr Louise Rolland, Associate Research Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London Louise currently lectures on bilingualism at the University of Greenwich.
Bilingual Forum, November 25th, 2020
Adam Schoem (University of Alcalá) gave a presentation from his research: "The Importance of Self-care and Mental Health Education for Interpreters"
Adam shared the results of his research project, and discussed different aspects of work stress, self-care, and methods of learning about self-care for interpreters.
Bilingual Forum 16th June 2020
Languages of survival and pain - how do torture survivors speak of the unspeakable?
The Forum session on Tuesday, 16th June, focused on the linguistic issues for torture survivors and the implications for mental health practice.
First, a presentation and interview with Dr Sally Cook about her research on the language choices of torture survivors within a therapeutic community. In the second part, an interview with Nathalie Talbot, an interpreter with many years of experience interpreting for survivors of torture.
Bilingual Forum for Therapists and Mental Health Interpreters
A National Forum for Bilingual Therapists and Mental Health Interpreters was established in 2010 to share learning and improve standards and practice. The Forum provides a space for ideas, experience, learning and good practice across languages to be shared and to offer a source of support and a network of supervision in a variety of languages.
The Forum meetings focus on a range of issues including:
- Language switching and its meaning
- Languages in which trauma is experienced and in which trauma is recalled
- The possibility of expressing different and additional emotions in different languages
- The interpreter’s role in the therapeutic alliance
- Language as a transitional object
- Language, communication and power
- People’s identities and relationships with different languages