A wonderful job that is emotionally challenging. Interpreting for people who have suffered requires a lot of self control to be able to cope with feelings that would stick in the way of accurately portraying the situation. Interpreters should be able to cope with the trauma of the person they are assisting, in order not to bring negative thoughts and negative effects to their own personal life, and in order to avoid burnout. They must be able to strike a balance between impartiality and empathy, since both are required for their job.
The emotional stress of professional interpreters
Emotional stress is an important part of an interpreter’s job that is usually underestimated in interpreting training courses. Indeed, healthcare interpreters and humanitarian interpreters may be subject to vicarious trauma.
An interesting training course online named Interpreting for Refugees is offered free of charge by the University of Glasgow on the FutureLearn platform.
Another valuable resource for humanitarian interpreting is the Inter4REF.eu project.
