How Language Shapes Mental Health

“There’s always a stopper. It’s almost like there is a plug when speaking in English, and I cannot bare my heart open. ”  

This sentiment was expressed by a participant in a recent study exploring the impacts of language on depression and anxiety symptoms in Japanese English bilingual people.  

Researchers have emphasized the impact of language on our mental health. Mental health interventions that take bilingual or multilingual individuals into account are not yet well understood but have piqued the interest of psychological scientists in recent years.   

The upcoming study, to be published in Clinical Psychological Science, examined adults over 40 years old who learned Japanese as their first language and English as their second, and who live in the United States. Participants completed depression and anxiety symptom rating scales in both Japanese and English.  

Higher rates of anxiety and suicidality were reported when the screening was completed in Japanese as opposed to English (Williams et al., in press). Two significant factors that contributed to this effect were culture and the semantic meaning of words in different languages.   

Culture and language are almost impossible to separate, said Viorica Marian, a professor of communication sciences and disorders at Northwestern University, contributing author to the study, and author of the new popular science book The Power of Language.  

“Anything can change depending upon which cultural frame of reference is being used,” Marian said. “So, if you speak a language like English that’s associated with a more individualistic frame of reference, you are going to place a different value, and you evaluate things differently, because your frame of reference is changed.”  

Different cultures can have vastly different perceptions of mental health. Japanese culture, for example, can be less open about mental health, said Aya Inamori Williams, a clinical psychologist and researcher at Santa Clara University.  

“Because mental health carries a lot of stigma, people tend to not talk about emotions, especially using internal state feeling words, like ‘sad,’ ‘hurt,’ ‘ashamed,’ or ‘in pain,’” she said.   

Semantic meanings can also change the way an individual processes a thought. For instance, bilingual or multilingual people think about things differently depending on the framework and language they are using.   

“Switching languages can help provide a different lens through which to make that decision and to reach a decision,” Marian said. “It can help you process emotions and relationship issues, and switching languages can give you a different perspective in your cognitive and emotional processing.”    

The study also explored participants’ ability to express emotions in one language compared to another. One participant in the study shared their feelings, stating, “Despite my profession as a translator and my proficiency in English, I feel that it’s a high hurdle to describe my own depression in English. I have never sought therapy or mental health providers before. I wonder, ‘How much can I communicate?’ ‘Will they understand what I am feeling?’”   

Recommendations for how to approach language in mental healthcare included providing materials in multiple languages and inviting bilingual clients to switch between languages. The study’s authors also suggested that future work could investigate artificial intelligence interventions, such as live translation/transcription services and software.   

Marian said it is difficult to make recommendations for mental health professionals because there isn’t enough long-term data available to know what works and what does not work. However, shedding light on how language affects mental health, and how mental healthcare providers can accommodate it, is crucial to provide evidence-based services for people who speak more than one language.   

“Our message here is that language can influence mental health and well-being,” she said. “We are starting a conversation on the importance of considering bilingual mental health. As we open the door, we invite clinicians, psychologists, and other service providers to study how using two languages can help in assessment and intervention.”  

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References 

Williams, A., Rochanavibhata S., & Marian, V. (in press). Language-dependent expression of anxiety and depression symptoms in Japanese–English bilinguals. Clinical Psychological Science. 

Marian, V., & Hayakawa, S. (2025). Consequences of Bilingual Language Coactivation for Higher Order Cognition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214251339455