How A Clinician Finds 'Extreme' Hardship When Clients Minimize Their Pain 

Translating unspoken trauma into  Foundations

November 2025  │  Reading Time: ~ 4 minutes

So, ‘extreme hardship’ has to be described somehow in every immigration evaluation. We are telling the story of why someone left their country of origin due to hardship, why that relationship was cruel, or what made the crime criminal, etc. All cases including the I-601A waivers have some hardship attached to them. My job is to help highlight the toll of that exceptional and extremely unusual hardship; however, it must "exist" for me to extract its effect into a legible explanation for a written report. In this blog post, I want to express the importance of the client’s attempt to use language (or the lack thereof) when trying to describe their hardships and what us clinicians do with what we’ve got in front of us. Let’s take a dive!

Bridging the Divide: Emotion, Language, and the Written Report

Trauma's Linguistic Toll

A group of researchers from the Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics (2025) described emotions as a psychological phenomenon independent of language itself and that emotions may not even be expressed aloud in words. This group explained that the "expression of emotions through language" developed through a combination of physiology, psychology, and medicine; language referred to here as verbal words. After digesting the thought that emotions are an independent variable, and then we have to connect our words to the emotions we have, I wonder how the process is changed when the person experiences intense emotions from traumatic events. Either way, we must translate the inability to vocalize pain and suffering through our professional writing styles. 

Translating Trauma into Casework

An article written by Maria Pedroni (2024), explained that writing can be a useful technique for integrating fair ideas into casework and connecting ethical and theoretical components into our professional practice. I am happy I found this perspective because I agree that writing is more than just applying procedural skills; They continued by summarizing that writing is a way of articulating behavioral  interventions and educating readers on actual definitions, and in this case, of hardship within the lives of our client who was forced to migrate. When we write the immigration evaluation reports, we help other professions understand the complex nature of the issues migrants face when we tackle and communicate them effectively. Importantly, the author pointed out that our clients are affected by our written reports because they are the ones influenced by the long-term outcomes it has on their future. 

From Minimization to Systemic Clarity

I have noticed the nuanced difference between migration and forced migration and how research varies depending on which search term you use. While anyone can be an immigrant coming into the country, our work definitely serves those who are leaving their homes because of conflict or disasters (Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2025). Accurately portraying their circumstances even when left unspoken is the nature of our work. Therefore, all ‘hardships’ are different. The client's minimization is not a lack of sincerity; it appears to be a linguistic process caused by the need to find verbal language that sometimes they cannot find. The client needs to find words to express and describe emotion while also simultaneously still feeling it.

Where to go from here: Be mindful that hardship is ongoing and in the room with you, trauma disrupts the natural process and the person is trying to cope. 

🤝The Clinician’s Co-Sign 🤝

The professional consensus here for you and your team’s understanding is that we, clinicians, witness and capture the hardship that’s in the interview with us — it's presently in the room at the moment, and displayed in the client’s presentation. I contend that it is our professional duty as "translators" to draft an immigration report that connects the client's minimized or nonverbal experience with the specified term of "extreme hardship." This requires making sure the unsaid narrative is expressed with accuracy that is acceptable and to legal standards. We also are careful with our word choices such as,  "forced migration" over "migration" or "immigration" that reflects a commitment to systemic accuracy. Instead, remember minimization as a trauma-based linguistic process that makes it difficult to find words while also experiencing the intense emotion. It is important for us to connect the client's personal experience (as much as possible) to establish the way for your legal duties as their attorney and the frameworks you apply to defend that hardship.

This information offers an alternative perspective on client minimization and its implications for casework.

Help us help you help them. 

-Dr. Perocier