By Mariana Sampaio, LMHC, MSW · Founder, Mind Over Matters Institute · RO-DBT & DBT specialist
Talking about your emotions is hard in any language. Doing it in a second language — with someone who doesn't know your culture — is harder still. For many immigrants and bicultural adults, that added difficulty is exactly why they never quite feel understood in therapy.
Feelings live in your mother tongue
There's a reason you count, curse, and dream in your first language. The words you learned emotion in carry a weight their translations don't. When therapy happens only in a second language, a subtle translation tax is charged on every sentence — and some of the truth gets lost on the way. Therapy in your first language removes that tax. You can say the thing the way it actually feels, and be met there.
The weight a second language can't hold
For people living between cultures, the hardest material is often about that in-between-ness: the guilt of leaving family behind, the grief of a life restarted, the pressure to "make it," the identity that doesn't fully fit in either place. These aren't side topics — they're often the center of the work.
Culture isn't decoration — it's data
Good cross-cultural therapy treats your background as essential information: how your family relates to emotion, what "strength" looks like where you come from, what shame and pride mean in your context. A therapist who has lived between worlds hears what a well-meaning outsider might miss.
Care that meets you where you are
At Mind Over Matters we offer therapy in Portuguese, Spanish, and English — plus coaching in Farsi — 100% online across Washington. In-network with Premera Blue Cross, First Choice Health, Aetna, and Cigna. You shouldn't have to translate yourself to be understood.