26/05/2020
Today, 26th of May, is National Story Day here in Australia. National Sorry Day remembers and acknowledges the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families and communities. We now know these people as ‘The Stolen Generations’. National Sorry Day is […]
21/04/2020
In these troubled times, I’ve been listening to more music, as I’ve always found my favourite musicians and their songs lift my mood. I’ve been meaning to include more music in this Healing Blog for some time now, but just haven’t got around to it. Time to change […]
10/04/2020
I’ve just been talking with my close friend Michael (Mike) Scott. It’s his 42nd birthday today. Not his belly-button birthday, but he is 42 years sober today. What an achievement! Mike started reading my first website, the drug and alcohol news portal Daily Dose, back in 2002, when […]
09/04/2020
Many people are worried today, not just about the Covid-19 virus itself, but the impact it is indirectly having on their lives and on society as a whole, and what the future after the virus holds for us. Many people are looking for key information about these issues. […]
17/03/2020
Here are some thoughtful words in difficult times from a beautiful group of Aboriginal people, We Al-li Healing Programs. Please read this blog, the words might make you feel better and help you move forward in a positive way. When I saw We Al-li’s Facebook page, I contacted Carlie […]
12/03/2020
I’m reading a fascinating book at the moment, written by Maia Szalavitz and Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., titled Born for Love: why empathy is essential—and endangered. Possessing empathy is a key attribute for people who are trying to help others heal or recover from trauma and its consequences, […]
05/03/2020
In my last blog posting, I wrote about ‘Bringing them home’, the report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. This report tells the stories of many of the so-called Stolen Generations. I also provided a link to […]
06/02/2020
The documentary Bringing them home: separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, found on the Australian Human Rights Commission YouTube channel, ‘was produced in 1997 and forms part of the Bringing them home education resource for use in Australian classrooms. This resource is based on […]
21/01/2020
In a previous blog entitled Community Building, I introduced Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) as a way of facilitating healing in communities. I pointed out that the most common approach to ‘helping’ communities (and individuals) has involved focusing on the community’s needs, deficiencies and problems. This approach leads to […]
13/11/2019
Some time ago, I found a great biography on encore.org of a very special Native American, Don Coyhis. I first uploaded this biography onto my Recovery Stories website back in April 2014, but it’s time this biography is on our website as a celebration of Don’s amazing healing work […]
07/11/2019
In past blogs, I have described the enormous impact that Judy Atkinson and her book Trauma Trails: Recreating Song Lines – The Transgenerational Effects of Trauma in Indigenous Australia had on my personal beliefs and on the work I do. The book inspired me to develop the educational […]
30/10/2019
In his interesting book Healing the Mind Though the Power of Story: The Promise of Narrative Psychiatry, Dr Lewis Mehl-Madrona, who I hold in very high regard, emphasises the importance of story. In this blog, I’m going to describe some of his reflections about story (pp. 2 – […]
24/10/2019
When I came to live in Australia in December 2008, I knew little about the past government policy of removing Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. This policy was introduced by Federal and State government acts in order to assimilate Aboriginal and Torres Strait […]
18/10/2019
It’s hard to believe that it is over six years ago since I launched Sharing Culture, an educational initiative to facilitate the healing of intergenerational, or historical trauma, trauma. It is also six years ago since Michael Liu and I went out with Professor Marion Kickett to her […]
10/10/2019
Suicide amongst Aboriginal peoples in Australia was almost non-existent a few generations ago. ‘When the first suicide occurred we didn’t have a word for it. In the Arnhem they had to find a new word for it.’ Elder David Cole. However, today it is at one of the […]