When Wilfredo José Burgos Matos designed and taught Spanish in Mental Health Contexts this spring, through the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, it was the culmination of a long journey.
Burgos, a doctoral candidate in the department, first became aware of the need for such a course when he was struggling to find bilingual mental health services, for himself, when he was living in New York City as a young adult.
“As a native of the Hispanic Caribbean, even though I am fluent in English, I was aware that the nuances of some of the emotions I needed to talk about would be lost if I didn’t speak about them in Spanish,” he said. “Even though around half of the population of the South Bronx speaks Spanish as their first language, I was only able to find one Spanish-speaking psychiatrist.” As it turns out, only 6% of mental health providers in general are bilingual in English and Spanish.
A few years later, after his move to Austin, Burgos was invited to teach and co-supervise the program on Spanish for medical professionals, Spanish Medication, at the Travis County Medical Society. He listened to his students, who were doctors and nurses, and the topic of communication around mental health issues came up frequently, so he started a series of independent workshops for people who were part of more general health education programs. When he described what he was doing to his department at UT Austin, he received enthusiastic support to develop a similar course within Spanish and Portuguese.
The course, taught mostly in Spanish, develops the language skills needed to provide mental health care to Hispanic/Latino(x/e) patients with limited English proficiency. It focuses on the development of mental health terminology as it relates to euphemisms, idioms, and expressions, as well as the role of cultural nuances in everyday clinical mental health interactions. “The course is invested in taking a holistic approach to mental health that incorporates cultural awareness and Hispanic and Latinx communities’ approaches to life and spirituality as principles upon which our conversations and understanding of emotions are built,” said Burgos.
The course aims to foster a greater understanding of the role of Spanish and bilingualism in the field, and the importance of cultural awareness in Spanish-speaking communities when tackling mental health issues. At the same time, the class provides students with language skills for LGBTQ+ affirming exchanges and teaches foundational concepts for understanding pharmacological concepts related to psychiatry, psychiatric centers, and hospitals. Students leave the course with the skills to perform advanced work in their fields that ranges from clinical interpretation to translation of mental health records and files, to the creation of informational resources for the Hispanic/Latino(x/e) population in the United States.
In its first semester, the class has drawn students from psychology, public health, international relations, modern languages, and biochemistry. “The response has been incredible and affirms the strong demand for better mental health services in Spanish-speaking communities, and the strong desire of our students to make an impact,” says Burgos, who looks forward to teaching the course again in the spring 2023 semester.