Why emotions live in your first language.
Why bilingual people often cannot cry in their second language, what changes when therapy happens in Spanish, and how a session works across both.
By Dr. Corina Lopez, PhD · ·4 min read Draft — awaiting review
A woman I will call Marisol had been in therapy in English for two years. Good therapy, she said. She understood herself better. She had never cried in it once.
In our second session, she tried to describe her grandmother’s kitchen, switched to Spanish for the name of a dish, and wept for ten minutes. Nothing about the memory had changed. The language had.
Two languages, two nervous systems
For people who grew up in one language and built their adult life in another, the two are not interchangeable. The first language was learned in the body — before we had words for words — alongside being held, scolded, fed, comforted. It is wired to emotion. The second language was often learned in school and at work: precise, competent, slightly armored.
So when a bilingual person does therapy in their second language, they can describe feelings accurately and still not feel them. It is not resistance. It is that the door to the feeling is in a different room.
What changes in Spanish
- The words for feelings are closer to the feelings. Coraje is not exactly “anger.” Pena is not exactly “shame.” The precise word lets the precise feeling arrive.
- Family shows up in their own voices. When you quote your mother in her language, you hear her, not a translation of her.
- There is less performance. Many people learned to be “professional” in English. Spanish is where they are a daughter, a brother, a kid.
- Cultural context does not need a footnote. Compadrazgo, respeto, el qué dirán — we can just talk.
How a bilingual session actually works
You do not choose a language at the door. Most of my bilingual clients drift: English for the week’s logistics, Spanish when the subject gets close, sometimes both in one sentence. I follow. If you have never done therapy in Spanish and are not sure your Spanish is “good enough,” it is — the therapy Spanish you need is the Spanish you already have.
If sessions in Spanish are part of what you are looking for, who I work with and the questions page cover the practical side. The first call can be in either language.
This is a field note, not therapy or a diagnosis. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.