Multilingual clients are different from monolingual clients. So writes Beverley Costa at the start of this groundbreaking book. Other Tongues challenges counsellors and psychotherapists to consider more deeply the tool that is central to their work - namely, language. Costa argues that a profession that practises 'talking therapy' should consider more carefully the challenges and opportunities working multilingually presents. She argues that multilingualism should be a core part of the training curriculum for all counsellors and psychotherapists, and a subject for sensitive exploration with clients. She also explores the important role of interpreters in giving a voice to clients who do not speak English as a first language, and offers guidance on good practice to counsellors working with them. The book is a powerful plea to the counselling profession to acknowledge the riches clients' other languages can bring to the therapeutic relationship. To ignore multilingualism risks not only overlooking important meanings in the nuances of emotional expression but also perpetuating inequalities in access to therapy.

About the Author
Dr Beverley Costa grew up in East London in a family with three languages and two religions and cultural practices. After training as a counsellor, psychotherapist and group psychodramatist, she set up Mothertongue, a multi-ethnic counselling service, to meet a gap she observed in services for multilingual clients. In 2009 she created a pool of mental health interpreters within Mothertongue and in 2010 established the national Bilingual Therapist and Mental Health Interpreter Forum. Beverley founded The Pasalo Project in 2017 (www.pasaloproject.org) to disseminate learning from Mothertongue. She is a Senior Practitioner Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, and has published a number of papers and chapters on therapy across languages. With Professor Jean Marc Dewaele, she won the 2013 BACP Equality and Diversity Research Award. Beverley has delivered training and supervision to statutory and voluntary sector health and social care organisations for the past two decades and has produced two anthologies of interpreters' stories and a play about a couple in a cross-language relationship, for the Soho Theatre, London. She co-founded the performance group of interpreters, Around the Well, in 2018.


Book Information
ISBN 9781910919620
Author Beverley Costa
Format Paperback
Page Count 150
Imprint PCCS Books
Publisher PCCS Books
Weight(grams) 200g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 138mm * 8mm