Communication is vital in psychiatry, but it can be impaired when speakers do not share a language or lack language proficiency. The aim of this study is twofold: firstly, we examine how the interpreter’s presence has an impact on communication between psychiatrist and patient in a psychiatric consult; secondly, we explore the possibility to compare two different types of language mediation (in this case, a professional interpreter and Dutch as a foreign language to the patient) through the triangulation of data and analytic methods. In this respect, two psychiatric consultations were video-recorded. Additionally, a retrospective interview was conducted with the psychiatrist. The discursive data were analysed using conversation analysis focusing on turn design, question-answer sequences, and topic development, combined with quantitative elements (e.g. turn count) and the results from a thematic analysis of the interview transcription. The analysis revealed advantages and disadvantages in working with an interpreter and showed some discrepancies between the psychiatrist’s perceptions or expectations and what we found in the discursive data. We conclude that the combination of research methods provides valuable insights into psychiatric consultations with and without an interpreter
