April 11, 2025:
Via Zoom

Implications of Linguistic Identity for the Psychotherapeutic Process
Presented by: Maria Lima

While our globalized world has increased the prevalence of multilingual patients and therapists, multilingualism seems to be a topic that remains unspoken in psychotherapy training programs as well as in institutions that provide psychotherapy to the wider community. The lack of awareness about the specificities of the multilingual experience can cause therapists to misunderstand their patients’ emotional functioning and to misdiagnose them. This presentation aims to provide a means to reflect on how language is at the core of the individual’s identity – their sense of self and mode of being in the world. It also aims to address the implications of multilingualism for psychotherapeutic practice by using clinical material from psychotherapy sessions with monolingual and bilingual patients. In this presentation we will delve into the particularities of the subjective experience of people who make sense of themselves and the world in more than one language, and it will be argued that an awareness of the linguistic characteristics of each patient promotes better psychotherapeutic practice, whether conducted by monolingual or multilingual therapists. We will then extend this exploration to monolingual therapeutic dyads, emphasizing that even in such dyads, there may be “different languages” being spoken, as the same words can have distinct emotional connotations depending on each person’s lived experience.

Register at CFS: https://contemporaryfreudiansociety.org/calendar-of-events/public-events/

For any questions/concerns regarding the Washington Case Conference please contact Connie Stroboulis at connies3@aol.com