‘No one ever speaks about it’: A qualitative investigation exploring the experiences of multilingual counsellors in practice

Aim To explore and understand the experiences of counsellors who were trained in English, but used another language when counselling clients who did not speak English or had limited English language proficiency. Although multilingual counselling is growing, this had seldom been specifically researched, with the experiences of counsellors being even more neglected. Method This research adopted a qualitative methodology which involved interviewing 11 participants trained in different modalities, using different languages with varied levels of experience of counselling in another language, to obtain a range of narratives. Interviews were audio recorded, followed by verbatim transcriptions and thematic analysis. Findings The study found participants had not previously had an opportunity to discuss their experiences of offering multilingual counselling. A discussion around counselling in a language other than English had not taken place during training, in their workplace, in supervision or with peers. They described many difficulties that influenced client work. Participants reported feeling isolated, tired and bearing full responsibility for their work. They described significant differences between counselling in English and other languages, with the clients of the latter receiving a less useful service than English speaking clients. Discussion An exploration of the research findings alongside contemporary literature highlights the possibility that further training and support may be needed for multilingual counsellors. Recommendations for service providers, future research and training are suggested.