As an organization whose primary aim is the construction and implementation of culturally sensitive interventions for the amelioration of the quality of life of marginalized youths, we feel we must elaborate on what we mean by culture and culturally sensitive in order to emphasize how foundational the cultural component is to our overall endeavor. We borrow our notion of culture from Geertz, who contends that culture, "denotes a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men (and women) communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life," (Geertz, 1973, p. 89). Therefore, it may be assumed that as we concoct and engage in culturally sensitive interventions, what we are actually doing is gracefully entering and gently interacting with the symbolic world that a particular culture has erected and maintains. By means of the understanding we reach with a given symbol set, we become capable of respectfully utilizing the meanings that are inherent to that set for the sake of achieving a richer understanding of the lives of those individuals imbedded within the culture we are working with. The intention is, simply, as follows: through a careful correspondence with a culture's most vital symbols, we deepen our understanding of the psyche of that particular culture, thereby enhancing therapeutic effectiveness.
A culture's most vital symbols may appear in many forms and may describe many things. These symbols may exist in multiple compartments of a cultural milieu and may inform, through numerous modalities, the daily existences of a given population. Our task is to retrieve those elements of data that we believe to be, either implicitly or explicitly, relevant to the presenting issue(s) of the population we are going to be working with. Then, through the avenues of various therapeutic techniques yet to be discussed, we re-connect the community we are working with to those "inherited conceptions" which define and vitalize their particular cultural milieu. This re-connection of a population with symbolic meaning is the fundamental thrust of our practice, the primary goal of our process.
But how do we determine which aspects of culture to utilize in the therapeutic endeavor? Where do we first search when seeking awareness of the soul of a community outside of our own? We delve where a culture's libido, or psychic energy, lies. We look for that which is highlighted but hidden, meaningful but missing. This may involve us summoning history to our aid or employing art in our aim. Or perhaps this necessitates that we wrestle with the local gods through mythological consideration or prep the ground, laying way for indigenous music to flow once again, bearing on its back epiphanic healing. Generally speaking, we go where beacons bob, hunting those exemplary entities which befit the therapeutic situation as needed and which organically evolve throughout the unfolding of our process.
Jung says, "Meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything," (Jung, 196X, p. 340). Accordingly, Informed Hope's primary task is re-establishing meaning through the avenues of culture already in existence. By means of intercultural engagement, we orient ourselves about the presenting cultural core of our client population, honing in on those most salient features beneficial to the fulfillment of our intentions. Again, we go where we are needed. Through a process of integration, we allow those aforementioned features, in all their potency, in to our beings for their future employment in our cause. We intimately acquaint ourselves with this knowledge, believing that the better we understand a culture's ways of being, the more suited we are to intervene on that culture's behalf. And finally, through intricate implementation, we expose our clients to those symbols that inspire the most awe, usher in the most meaning, thereby rendering their lives endurable, if not purely pleasurable.
References:
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Jung, C.G. (1961). Memories, dreams, and reflections. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.