Therapy in Your First Language
Updated: 6 days ago
This scene happens every day in multilingual therapy: a patient has been speaking English throughout the session, recounting a childhood memory, and suddenly a word comes to mind in their first language, perhaps a phrase their mother used or a common expression from their home country. At this moment, what was being narrated with some emotional distance starts to be actually felt. The room lights up a little bit.
Language Is Not a Neutral Container
Anyone who speaks multiple languages knows that some thoughts and feelings cannot be directly translated.
The first language is not just the first vocabulary we learn, but how we were spoken about even before we could respond. It encompasses the words associated with being fed, held, comforted, named. These words were not just definitions because they came to us with a voice, a sound, and a specific physical presence. Any additional language learned later through schooling, effort, and translation does not carry this same emotional weight.
The Second Language: A Distance
Many people find it easier to express difficult emotions in their second language because it creates emotional distance. For instance, someone might provide a complete account of a childhood event in English while maintaining a sense of separation from the experience, while recounting the same event in Spanish, Portuguese, or Farsi may evoke a more visceral connection to it.
It's not that therapy must always be conducted in the first language. But when both languages are available to the patient, they access the same material from different emotional distances, and that brings important information to the therapist.
Therapy in Your First Language: What Does Not Translate
Some words simply do not translate well because there may be no equivalent with the same meaning and weight. This might include a culturally specific term for shame, a term of endearment, or a phrase from a parent that has lingered in the patient’s head for decades.
When people attempt to express these concepts in their second language, the meaning is inevitably altered, and the emotional impact is reduced. Also, the effort required to translate can be exhausting, which might limit how someone can express their thoughts and feelings, especially when discussing painful experiences.
Why We Work in Different Languages
Real Talk offers therapy in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Farsi. This is not just a service feature, but a clinical decision. The goal is not only comfort and inclusivity, but access to material that a second language may not express as directly.
If a person arrives at the office as an adult and their entire childhood experiences happened in another language, having therapy solely in English means working one step removed from much of what shaped their identity. While that therapeutic work remains valid, useful, and important, it has inherent limitations we strive to overcome.
Doctoral-level therapy, covered by major insurance plans, with sessions offered in person in Houston and via telehealth throughout Texas, available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Farsi.
