‘A healed and healthy country: understanding healing for Indigenous Australians’ by Tamara Mackean

September 7, 2013 by

2007_0116walpole0025Yesterday, I blogged about a description of healing by Professor Helen Milroy, an Aboriginal Child Psychiatrist and Australia’s first Aboriginal doctor. This wonderful description of healing was also included in the article below which appeared in the Medical Journal of Australia, but here I focus on the rest of the article.

Of course, much of what is said here is relevant to recovery, because recovery is healing. I have highlighted some sentences that I think are particularly relevant to people working in the recovery field worldwide, whatever their cultural background.

‘The Apology by the Prime Minister to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia in February 2008 was the first step in a significant healing journey.

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‘The Nature of Healing’ by Professor Helen Milroy

September 6, 2013 by

Unknown-1I have recently started collaborating with an Aboriginal lady here in Perth, Dr Marion Kickett, who is an Associate Professor at Curtin University. We’re very excited about the project we are developing, along with my close friend and filmmaker Mike Liu.

I have been fascinated reading about aboriginal history, culture, health, historical trauma – more of which I will talk about in later blogs – and many other things. During this time, I have become very interested in the concept of Aboriginal healing.

Yesterday, I was chatting with good friend Christina Burki about healing and she loaned me a fascinating book Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari. In the Foreword, I found this delightful description of healing (I have altered the paragraphs):

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“What is Recovery?” according to Stephanie Brown (Part 4)

July 3, 2013 by

P1010092In my last blog focusing on Stephanie Brown’s book A Place Called Self, I described two myths about recovery. In this blog, we look at the second myth: dependence is bad and recovery means you are no longer dependent.

‘… many women think recovery is moving from dependence to self-sufficiency. But there is no such thing as total self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is a partial condition.’

So what does Stephanie mean by this? She is emphasising that all of us are dependent in some way or other. We need other other people on whom we can depend. ‘No man (or woman) is an island.’

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