The role of language in therapy with the Spanish-English bilingual client.

Abstract

The clinical and counseling psychology profession has witnessed a steady increase in research on the development and application of Hispanic/Latino-centered therapeutic approaches; however, little attention has been given to incorporating the dynamics of a client's language background in treatment. The authors discuss the important role of language representation and emotions and the implications for conducting therapy with bilingual clients who speak Spanish and English. The contributions of psychoanalysis and psycholinguistics that have guided the research on language issues in counseling and therapy are presented, and future directions in research, training, and practice are outlined. 1 We use the term Hispanic/Latino for two reasons. First, the group term Hispanic was created by the Office of Management and Budget and is defined as a "person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture of origin" (Marín & Marín, 1991, p. 20). The purpose of creating this term was to categorize a group of people not by country of origin but by a common language-Spanish. Second, although the term Hispanic appears in most of the counseling and psychotherapy literature, the term Latino has been growing in popularity because it represents a political consciousness and a sense of ethnic pride, particularly among those residing in the United States. We choose to use both terms interchangeably throughout the article.

Multilingual Clients’ Experience of Psychotherapy

“…Researchers have focused on the nature and challenges of offering psychological support and therapy across cultures (Eleftheriadou, 2010;Fernando, 2010;Fernando & Keating, 2009;Lago, 2006;Lowe, 2013;Martinovic & Altarriba, 2013). Gradually more attention has been paid to the role of multilingualism in therapy and the exploration of the relationship between language and therapy (Amati-Mehler, Argentieri & Canestri, 1993;Kokaliari, Catanzarite & Berzoff, 2013;Perez Foster, 1998;Santiago-Rivera & Altarriba, 2002;Szekacs-Weisz, 2004). Marcos (1976) is one of the pioneering studies in this domain.…”

Effects of musical valence on the cognitive processing of lyrics

“…Language has been shown to play a role in the therapeutic environment through dual identities and a second language being able to distance the client from the emotional side of what they are saying (Santiago-Rivera & Altarriba, 2002). If music therapists are aware that negative music is more likely to engage the client's deeper semantic pathways , and have lyrics resonate at a deeper level than in positive music, this could be used as a therapeutic tool.…”

The Emotional Force of Swearwords and Taboo Words in the Speech of Multilinguals

“…Both psycholinguistic investigations and psychoanalytic case studies suggest that languages learned after puberty may differ from previously learned language(s). Languages learned early in life seem to have a stronger emotional resonance than languages learned later, which seem to have a weaker emotional hold on the individual (Amati-Mehler et al ., 1993;Javier, 1989;Santiago-Rivera & Altarriba, 2002). Bond and Lai (1986) and Javier and Marcos (1989) show that bilinguals may codeswitch to their second language to distance themselves from what they say.…”