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The slang of Bronx classrooms and Castle Hill housing projects spices my English, and a New York accent peppers my sentences. For clinicians unversed in the lexicon of BX/NY culture, let me put you on.
“Yeah, nah” means “no.”
“Mad” is not always a feeling. Patients who “can't process because I have mad feelings,” may not be talking about anger. They may be communicating overwhelm with too many different feelings. Instead of referring to a loss, they may “take L's.” Good friends, regardless of gender, are “sons.”
When I am found in the transference, I can span the familial titles. In my consultation room, I can expect to be greeted with, “What's up, bro?” But I can also become, “sis,” and, during particularly meaningful moments of attunement, “my good sis.”
¿Y mi Español?
My Spanish is a tapestry of a Dominican's playful musicality and a Honduran's more punctuated diction. In a 2024 assessment of countries who rank highest in the Mental Health Quotient, a barometer of overall happiness, the Dominican Republic ranked number one. It shows in our Spanish, which features “chillaxing” as a verb. Instead of asking, “what's new” a Dominican may say, ¡Dímelo cantando! which means, “Tell it to me singing.” A person who perfects a craft is a matatan, which would mean that Sigmund Freud is no longer the Father of Psychoanalysis. In La Republica, the venerated Austrian would be El Matatan de Psicoanálisis.
¿Estamos Clorox?
That is Dominican slang for “Are we clear?”
If Dominican Spanish is the hare, then Honduran Spanish is, by comparison, the tortoise. Like a ticking metronome, my Honduran Spanish is slow and steady, enunciated, and structured. My father's Dominican words speedily tumble into each other, like toppling dominoes, while my mother's Honduran words stand at attention. Fellow Hondurans are catrachos, and use voz (think, “thou”) instead of the informal tu. Rather than waste words with prolonged buenos días or buenas noches, they will instead offer a brief and concise buen