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possibly, usage in the region where they grew up. Meena also finds that the choice of T or V depends on the client's age but possibly also on gender. Russian offers perhaps the most complex set of 'rules'. Elena reports that while the choice between the informal ты and the formal вы is 'often automatic and culturally prescribed' (when clients are significantly younger or older), it is more complex when they are closer in age. In fact, like some other Russian-speaking therapists, Elena sometimes establishes the 'rules' for pronoun usage from the outset. Alternatively, therapists may opt to begin with вы to establish boundaries or ты to make it harder for the client to 'distance themselves from some emotional states'. Elena adds that using ты 'can help a small scared child inside the client to feel heard. A person never says вы to themselves in internal speech, only ты, so when the therapist uses вы at such moments, it creates a form of distancing from feelings.' One client experienced alienation from the world around her and used вы to avoid having to engage too closely with other people: in this case, Elena reports, discussion of the use of ты helped both client and therapist to explore her relationship with the world. Switching languages When a client has a command of two languages, their choice of language may be of even greater significance to the therapeutic Vol/53 No/2 2014 APRIL/MAY The Linguist 9 FEATURES work. All four therapists report the use of code-switching to negotiate difficult or uncomfortable emotion – a sign that the client is moving into a significant area. Meena says that clients sometimes begin a session in English but switch to their mother tongue when they feel angry or frustrated, or when issues relate specifically to the cultural background in which they feel rooted. Antonio is more ambivalent about clients' reasons for switching: 'Sometimes, one language will help them get closer to an issue but at other times, it also helps them gain a better perspective if it's not their mother tongue,' he says. He cites the example of a Spanish-speaking client who felt she had an addiction to food and 'preferred to talk about it in English because it gave her more perspective on it. You could say that it was her way of thinking about it in a more adult way, whereas talking about it in Spanish might have taken her to a more childish place. Then again, talking about it in English might also have been a way of her avoiding the negative feelings arising.' Elena's Russian-speaking clients may revert to English clichés to describe feelings, and here, too, she needs to tune into why: 'At times, it feels helpful to ask [why], as it could be about some difficult raw feelings that don't sound as hurtful/painful in another language. At other times, it feels right to think of it as just a cliché.' Elena and Uta also say clients sometimes switch languages naturally – for example, when recounting a specific incident or a conversation that has taken place in one of their two languages – but they agree that switching may also enable the client to contain a difficult emotion: 'If someone wishes to avoid a feeling or avoid being moved, they may well want to use the more 'remote' foreign language to create distance. Quite likely, this is not a conscious process, but I may address this to bring into awareness whatever is going on underneath,' says Uta. 'In my experience, words have a different feeling, tone and intensity depending on the language used. Research has found that the degree of emotionality in a language learnt early in life differs from that learnt later… partly because it was learnt in conjunction with learning how to regulate that emotion.' The ability to code-switch is controversial among therapists: Beverley Costa of Mothertongue, a multi-ethnic counselling and listening service that also works with specially trained interpreters, 5 highlights its value in situations in which clients lack access to a therapist who shares their language and have only a poor command of the language their therapist speaks. However, she notes that other therapists think code-switching may enable the client to avoid emotional arousal and duck uncomfortable areas. 6 In work with Jean-Marc Dewaele, 7 Costa explores the specific use of code-switching to create greater emotional proximity or distance when shame and trauma are involved, citing the fact that an individual's mother tongue has greater connections with the neurological structures in the brain that mediate emotional arousal. Using sign language Suzanne and Pauline work with a mix of hearing and Deaf/hearing-impaired clients; the majority use BSL while a few use a mixture of BSL and speech or, in one case involving a newly-deafened client, a mixture of lip-reading and written interaction. Drawing and other visual tools can be used to good effect, too. Suzanne works primarily with hearing clients and Pauline, who is Deaf, mostly with Deaf/hearing-impaired clients. Both report the need to be very flexible in therapy sessions. A BSL therapist is less likely to encounter code-switching between English and another language when the therapy moves into a © THINKSTOCK