Role of Native Language in Therapy

Language plays an important role in the process of immigration and in therapy itself.  As an expatriate and a bilingual clinician, I understand how the use and misuse of a new (or second) language can revive old issues related to self-esteem.  Linked to language are specific relationships, social contexts, environments, sensory experiences and various experiences of self.  Several studies acknowledge the role of language in allowing the release of unconscious material, as well as the role of our first language as the storehouse of early infantile experiences.  Reverting to one’s mother tongue (first language) helps bilingual patients revisit their early experiences and emotions that took place in the context of that particular language.  Undergoing therapy in a language acquired later in life will not allow the same access to this emotionally loaded psychic material. The second language may also be used in a defensive way to avoid some emotions or memories, to fend off anxiety, and intellectualize the process.  For this reason it can be particularly beneficial for a bilingual patient to engage in therapy in his/her native language, with a therapist who speaks that native language or is bilingual herself.