David Clark
21/01/2019
The present blog is based very closely on one I wrote in September 2018 for my website Sharing Culture. Sharing Culture is an educational resource I developed in 2014 to help facilitate the healing of intergenerational, or historical, trauma. It was inspired by my reading of Judy Atkinson’s […]
18/01/2019
As I described in my last Healing blog, one theme which is at the heart of the Carrolup Story involves the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents. Today, we know that adverse experiences in childhood can impact powerfully on a person’s physical and psychological wellbeing many years […]
16/01/2019
![Blackboys by Revel Cooper, watercolour on paper, 38 x 57cm, 1964. Purchased from George Abdullah, Perth, 1965. Berndt Museum of Anthropology. [WU3269]](https://www.carrolup.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Blackboys-by-Revel-Cooper-960x720.jpg)
As my colleague John Stanton is away on holiday in New Zealand, I thought I’d take this opportunity to blog about John’s association with Carrolup for a period of over 40 years. That’s a serious, long-standing interest and commitment! The initial large section of this blog come from […]
15/01/2019
One theme which is at the heart of the Carrolup Story involves the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents. These children became known as the Stolen Generations. This did not just happen to most of the children at Carrolup, but occurred to Aboriginal children across Australia, and […]
14/01/2019
It is essential to consider the social, political and cultural context in Western Australia to fully appreciate the Carrolup Story and the achievements of the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup. We have devoted early chapters of our forthcoming book – Aboriginal Child Artists of Carrolup – to this […]
10/01/2019
The Story of the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup must be told within the social, political and cultural context of what was occurring in Western Australia during the 1940s and 1950s, as well as at earlier times. The first chapters of our forthcoming book – due out later […]
09/01/2019
Some of you will know that I have worked in the addiction and mental health field for over 40 years, spending the first 25 years as a neuroscientist working on the brain neurotransmitter dopamine. I eventually closed my laboratory because I: (1) stopped believing in disease models of […]
07/01/2019
It’s good to be back after a long break for the Christmas and New Year holidays. I would first like to wish you all the very best for 2019. I know that John would say the same if he was here. At present, he’s in New Zealand spending […]
14/12/2018
The website has been running for just over a month now and we’ve uploaded blog postings on all but three days. Our major aims in this initial period have been to: enhance awareness of the Story of Carrolup to the public and make people aware of our initiative, […]
13/12/2018
John and I visited Carrolup—or Marribank as it later became—on the 26th November 2018, on our way down to Albany from Perth. We walked around and explored some of the buildings, reflecting on what had gone on before when Aboriginal children were taken from their parents and held […]
11/12/2018
WE SHALL REMAIN was created to address the effects of historical trauma in our tribal communities. Many times, these untended wounds are at the core of much of the self-inflicted pain experienced in Native America. Much like fire, this pain can either be devastatingly destructive or wisely harnessed […]
08/12/2018
In my Healing Blog postings, I’m going to use a lot of quotes and film clips of people who I consider to be experts in the field, people like Judy Atkinson, Bessel van der Kolk, Bruce Perry, Judith Herman, James Gordon, Karen Treisman and Gabor Maté. Their words are […]
06/12/2018
In my last Healing Blog posting, I took a quote from Judith Herman’s classic book Trauma and Recovery about the importance of relationships in helping a person recover (heal) from trauma: Recovery can take place only within the context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation. In her renewed connection […]
05/12/2018
In my last blog, I wrote how Michael Liu and I found a ‘letter’ written by Carrolup artist Revel Cooper in 1960, which described how the children were ‘running wild’ at Carrolup Native Settlement during the first half of the 1940s. Revel went on to say: After the […]
04/12/2018
Judith Herman’s book Trauma and Recovery is a classic. Judith starts the recovery part of her book, in a chapter entitled ‘A Healing Relationship’, with some important insights into recovery and healing. ‘The core experiences of psychological trauma are disempowerment and disconnection from others. Recovery, therefore, is based upon the […]
03/12/2018
![First page of a description of life at Carrolup Native Settlement written by Carrolup artist Revel Cooper in 1960. Doreen Trainor Collection, J. S. Battye Library of West Australian History. [Click the image to see the full page. The letter continued, '... were of the very lowest standards' on the second page.]](https://www.carrolup.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_1533-960x720.jpeg)
When close friend and filmmaker Michael Liu and I were researching the life of Carrolup artist Revel Cooper, we came across an important ‘letter’ he wrote that was in the Doreen Trainor Collection at Battye Library. Revel wrote his memories of Carrolup Native Settlement from the time he […]
01/12/2018
Bessel van der Kolk is one of the world’s leading experts on trauma and the healing of trauma. His book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, is a classic in the field, one of the best non-fiction books I have […]
30/11/2018
Good morning. Today, John and I head back to Perth this morning after a very enjoyable week staying with Tony Davis in Albany. We’ll drop into The Kodja Place in Kojunup to meet John Benn, who as a youngster was taken to Carrolup by his mother, a local teacher. […]