On the Use of Metaphor Translation in Psychiatry

Providing mental healthcare to individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) remains a pressing problem within psychiatry. Because the majority of individuals trained in providing psychiatric care are English speakers, the quality of mental healthcare given to LEP patients is significantly lower than that provided for English speakers. The provision of mental healthcare is contingent on communication and understanding between the patient and healthcare provider, much more so than in the realm of physical healthcare, and English speakers are often unable to comprehend figurative language such as metaphors used by LEPs. Hence, Figurative Language Translation is invaluable to providing equitable psychiatric care. Now, metaphor has been shown to be paramount in both identifying individuals struggling with mental problems and helping those individuals understand and communicate their experiences. Therefore, this paper aims to survey the potential of Machine Translation for providing equitable psychiatric healthcare and highlights the need for further research on the transferability of existing machine and metaphor translation research in the domain of psychiatry.