On Culture and Time

I found these two blurbs from grad school on one of my flash drives and had to delete them. I can’t tell when they were from but know they date back to 2012. They come from a class on psychology and culture and sorely should be developed more clearly. A funny thing about grad school was that I had my way of doing things down when I finally decided that it wasn’t for me.

As it is true, Dr. Metrick, that the Medicine Wheel and this example fits aboriginal peoples of much of North America I do believe that the God’s Eye of Mexico is another version of the same concept. I will grant that the conquest of Latin America by Spain has left most of the Latinos Catholic. Still, there are many echoes of their native culture.

I intend to use the example of the Medicine Wheel to explain to clients why they need to curb their drug abuse citing that the spirit and emotion aspect of the wheel come into play.

Unfortunately, more often than I learn about my client’s culture I find myself teaching them about who their people are and how they can benefit from the knowing. This helps them feel as if they have gained something from our time together and instills confidence in their treatment.

I do recall some time ago, Robert, reading an article about culture and time and how some cultures view time as until an activity is completed. That would be in the way of our time model goes as “I need to be at work at nine” but their time model would be “I go to work when I finish eating.” The larger issue however is that modern life depents to some extent on how we view time so those cultures with the second modle has been looking to change things.