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On Living in a Second Language
By Paulo Victor dos Reis Silveira · CRP 04/70294
Living in a second language is rarely just a cognitive exercise in vocabulary and syntax. For those who move across borders, language is where the subtleties of intimacy, humor, and self-recognition are negotiated every day.
In relational psychoanalysis, we understand that language carries unconscious history. When you speak in another tongue, there can be a quiet exhaustion—a feeling that parts of who you were in your mother tongue are slightly edited, subdued, or out of reach.
Therapy offers a space where you do not need to perform fluency or flatten your complexity. It is an invitation to speak freely about what is often left untranslated.