Panic Attacks

Difficulty: Intermediate
Domain: Mental Health
Subdomain: Outpatient
Environment: Outpatient therapy clinic (video remote)

Region: USA

Time Estimate:: 27 min.
Avg. Length per Line:: 13 sec.

Introductory Summary: Ms. Figueroa is seeing Dr. Jennings, a psychologist, because she has what she describes as “episodes.”

Disclaimer:: This text is an original work of fiction based on real scenarios. Any similarities between people or places are purely coincidental.

Participants

Abbr.	Role	Language(s)
Int	Interpreter	en-US es-MX
Pt	Ms. Figueroa	es-MX
Dr	Dr. Jennings	en-US

Contributors

Authors

Kelly Grzech

Nanyi Mateo

Editors

Devin Gilbert

Yohana Imperio

Audio Engineer

Omar Mendoza

Voice Actors

Dr. Jennings: Skylar Lees
Ms. Figueroa: Pamela Martínez Ruiz
Interpreter: Giovanna Torres

Full Summary: Ms. Figueroa is seeing Dr. Jennings, a psychologist, because she has what she describes as “episodes.” Dr. Jennings seems to think she has anxiety and has experienced panic attacks. They both discuss the onset of her symptoms, what seems to cause the episodes, and why Ms. Figueroa is under so much stress. Dr. Jennings also administers an informal depression screening.

Main Challenges: Mental health interpretation can be difficult because of the qualitative nature of patients’ responses during encounters, as opposed to the quantitative responses medical doctors often seek out. This poses a number of challenges in terms of the length and complexity of utterances, as well as the wide range of potential subjects (and vocabulary) that may come up. Familiarity with words used to describe feelings is a must. In some cases, patients receiving mental health care may be hypersensitive to the demeanor and actions of others, so it is important to conduct yourself in an empathetic manner while maintaining the boundaries of the interpreter role.

Key Terminology and Vocabulary

English		español
---	anxiety	ansiedad	---
---	coping strategy	estrategia para sobrellevar un problema	---
---	don’t wash your dirty linen in public	la ropa sucia se lava en casa	---
---	speak up	alzar la voz	hablar
---	mental health	salud mental	---
---	courage	valentía	---
---	let the record show	que conste en el acta	---
---	feel down	sentirse desanimado	---
---	rare	poco común	---
---	concentrate on	concentrarse	---
---	depressed	deprimido	---
---	helpless	desamparado	---
---	hopeless	sin esperanzas	---
---	discouraged	desanimado	sin ánimo
---	fall asleep	dormirse	quedarse dormido
---	stay asleep	permanecer dormido	---
---	manage to do something	lograr hacer algo	---
---	feel bad about yourself	sentirse mal consigo mismo	---
---	failure	fracaso	---
---	let someone down	decepcionar a alguien	---
---	provide for someone	mantener a alguien	---
---	skip over	saltar	---
---	overeat	comer en exceso	---
---	two birds, one stone	matar dos pájaros de un tiro	---
fidgety	restless	inquieto	nervioso
---	sit still	quedarse quieto	---
---	exhausted	agotado	exhausto
---	psychiatrist	psiquiatra	---
---	psychologist	psicólogo	---
---	therapy	terapia	---
---	psychiatric medication	medicamento psiquiátrico	---
episode	episodio
---	out of nowhere	de la nada	---
---	pound	latir con fuerza	---
---	hold up	parar	retrasar
shake	tremble	temblar	---
---	get to the bottom of something	averiguar cuál es la raíz del problema	llegar al fondo de algo
---	shallow	superficial	---
---	slight	leve	---
---	race	acelerarse	---
---	heavy	pesado	---
---	tight	apretado	---
---	frightening	aterrador	---
---	panic attach	ataque de pánico	crisis de pánico
---	sneak up	agarrar	dar
---	distressing	angustiante	---
---	not make it through	no sobrevivir	---
---	cross that bridge when we get to it	ocuparnos de eso cuando sea el momento	---
---	pattern	patrón	---
---	at random	al azar	---
---	overdue bill	factura atrasada	---
---	stuck	atrapado	---
---	loan	préstamo	---
make matters worse	top it all off	para colmo	para rematar
---	manage your stress	controlar el estrés	---
---	take deep breaths	respirar profundo	---
---	bury your head in the sand	tapar el sol con un dedo	---
---	mindfulness techniques	técnicas de atención plena	---

Click or tap ???? to reveal terms in other language. Click again to hide.

Supplementary Resources: Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) Screeners, PHQ-SADS (Pfizer); The PHQ-9 (American Psychological Association); National Standards of Practice for Interpreters in Health Care (National Council on Interpreting in Health Care); A National Code of Ethics for Interpreters in Healthcare (National Council on Interpreting in Healthcare)

Panic Attacks

Dialogue