Signing Therapy

'Clients come closer to their deeper experiences when expressing them in their own language’... Ivey et al

1:1 psychotherapy for Deaf people with a therapist who can sign ...

hands signing

There are limited therapy services available for Deaf people. Often Deaf people are faced with the choice of seeing a non signing therapist and struggling to make communication work, or to work with an interpreter. Both of these options can pose difficult challenges as well as provide the potential for growth.

A further option is signing therapy – that is, working with a therapist who is fluent in British Sign Language. The most obvious benefit of signing therapy is that the work can happen on a 1:1 basis, and that the responsibility for communication is a joint one. Deaf people who are able to express themselves through their preferred mode of communication (over 65,00 Deaf people in the UK use BSL) can be freed up to focus on the issue or need that brought them into therapy, without the worry of whether he/she and the therapist will be able to understand each other.

I have over 12 years experience of working with deaf people and am fluent in British Sign Language, having achieved stage 3 BSL in 1997. I have worked as a signing therapist for 10 years, both in the NHS and more recently in private practice. Through this work I have developed an awareness of Deaf culture. I have also gained insight into the issues regularly faced by Deaf people, such as isolation (even within their own families), bullying and oppression, marginalisation and negative assumptions.