There is only one other person in the state of Kentucky who is certified to do what Lisa Amstutz does the way she does it.
Amstutz is a Qualified Mental Health Interpreter (QMHI), which means that she is certified to provide ASL interpretation services in mental health related settings.
“Being a mental health ASL Interpreter means that you are interpreting for mental health patients in a variety of settings,” she said. “Those can include inpatient psychiatric care, outpatient Psychiatric care, mental health counseling/therapy, mental status exams, psychological or neuropsychological evaluations, and medication check appointments with psychiatrists.”
Theoretically, any qualified ASL interpreter could provide these services, but Amstutz said that someone with this certification is the best fit for it. The training they undergo teaches them that the best mental health interpreters do not treat their work in mental health fields like they do other interpretation services. When doing mental health interpretation, Amstutz said her approach from the ground up is different.
“When I enter the mental health realm to work, I consider myself part of the team whose goal is to facilitate recovery and stability for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing/DeafBlind patient who is seeking treatment,” she said. “This is unique in interpreting work because typically we are very neutral in interpreting settings, meaning we don’t become part of the interaction taking place between the two parties and we don’t give opinions or feedback to them. QMHIs learn about the etiology of the patient’s deafness, if they have language dysfluency, we are given access to past treatment so that we can be on the same page with the Clinicians. We seek to have pre and post assignment conferences/debriefings with the Clinicians so we can talk about language nuances and specific things we saw related to Deaf Culture during the interaction that the Clinician isn’t specifically trained to observe.”
The process to become qualified is rigorous. For Amstutz, it involved traveling to Georgia, completing multiple case studies, interviewing mental health professionals and taking an exam that took more than five hours to complete. For her, though, it was worth it.
“I love mental health interpreting! It’s my favorite. I think this comes from a place of being a survivor of repeated traumatic abuse in my childhood. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a therapist who helped children who had been subjected to the types of abuse I was as a child, but I learned in my sophomore year of college that this wasn’t going to be a good, mentally healthy fit for me,” she said. “Helping others is huge to me, so years later when I learned about MHIT, I knew it was something I wanted to do.”
Since becoming certified, Amstutz said it has led to some of the most challenging and rewarding work she’s done in ASL interpretation.
“I get to interpret psychological and neuropsychological evaluations from time to time in my current position with UK HDI/OVR. I can also do other freelance mental health work as my life permits. I feel like I will work after I’m retired mostly interpreting in mental health settings,” she said. “While I can’t be too specific, I can say that working with patients who are experiencing active psychosis can be some of the most challenging assignments. Working with those who have been touched by suicide is also a privilege.”
