The paper investigates empathy in healthcare interpreting by suggesting a theoretical framework through which some of the rigidities and ambiguities of traditional role categories may be overcome. Methodologically, a trifocal model has been designed entailing: a close-up view at locally produced interactional moves in mediated professional-patient encounters recorded at family planning clinics; an intermediate view focusing on the mediators’ responses to a situational questionnaire; and a distance view of their tested individual dispositions. The interest of the analysis lies in the presentation of an innovative research model built on the core construct of empathy, and in the working hypotheses that may be derived from the interplay between its three in-built perspectives, rather than in the findings themselves which are hardly generalizable given the limited set of data under scrutiny.
