Psychotherapy, Translating the Incomprehensible: Commentary on '(Im)possible Translations: Challenging Therapeutic Authority Through Textual Practices' by Alexandra Zavos.

The article presents information on the works of group analyst Alexandra Zavos. Zavos, who is bilingual, has used her understanding of language translation to throw light on the practice of psychotherapy. She frames psychotherapy as a language practice and then encourages the reader to think about whether the difficulties associated with translation might equally apply to therapy, and whether this perspective can alert us to power relations and acts of appropriation. Zavos views therapy as a process of learning a new language. The article explores the difficulty of negotiating power relationships, when therapist and patient try to find a way of communicating in their separate languages. Zavos indicates that translating from Greek into English signifies differently from translating English into Greek. Zavos suggests that therapy and translation can both be seen as ways of interrogating the domestic by way of the foreign and vice versa. Zavos thus challenges group analysts to discuss the impossibilities of resisting and deconstructing authoritative positions and dominant practices.