trauma

24/04/2019
The Creek by Simpson Kelly, c1948, pastel on paper, 18.5 x 24 cm. Noel & Lily White Collection, Berndt Museum of Anthropology.
Author: David Clark on 24/04/2019
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Intergenerational Healing: Joe Solanto

Putting the finishing touches to this blog in a hotel in Reading, UK, before returning to Australia tomorrow. It’s been a wonderful month seeing my children, grandchild, brother and family, cousin and his wife, and close friends. It’s back to working on the Carrolup project next week, after […]
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26/03/2019
Bessel van der Kolk, M.D, author of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Author: David Clark on 26/03/2019
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The importance of safety and reciprocity in mental health

In my last Healing Blog, I recommended highly a book by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz entitled The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And other Stories From a Child Psychiatrists Notebook. Another seminal book about the healing of trauma is The Body Keep the Score: Brain, Mind, and […]
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13/03/2019
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz.
Author: David Clark on 13/03/2019
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Relationships, Connection and Healing from Trauma

For anyone interested in the healing of childhood trauma, I strongly recommend you read, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And other Stories From a Child Psychiatrists Notebook by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz. Here is a description of the book from the back cover: ‘What happens when […]
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20/02/2019
Carrolup School, main building. Photographer: David Clark, 16 November, 2016.
Author: David Clark on 20/02/2019
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Importance of the Carrolup Story

“The first step in re-establishing healthy communities is to acknowledge and understand the impact of the colonial legacy on the lives of Aboriginal people today and the various pathways necessary for healing from historical trauma, using both cultural and contemporary understandings and processes.” Pat Dudgeon, Helen Milroy and […]
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05/02/2019
Leaning tree by Milton Jackson, pastel on paper, 41 x 33cm, c.1949. Noel & Lily White Collection, Berndt Museum of Anthropology. [WU7568]
Author: David Clark on 05/02/2019
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Pathways to Aboriginal Healing

The first step in re-establishing healthy communities is to acknowledge and understand the impact of the colonial legacy on the lives of Aboriginal people today and the various pathways necessary for healing from historical trauma, using both cultural and contemporary understandings and processes.’ Helen Milroy, Pat Dudgeon and Roz […]
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26/01/2019
Mr. and Mrs. White with some of the Carrolup boys and the Peet family. Back row: Barry Loo, Mr. Peet, Noel White, Adrian Allen and Mrs. Peet. Middle row: Lily White and the three Peet girls. Front row: Parnell Dempster, unidentified boy and Reynold Hart. Photograph taken in 1949. Noel & Lily White Collection.
Author: David Clark on 26/01/2019
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Our Carrolup Project

I thought it particularly appropriate today, so-called ‘Australia Day’, that I re-iterate what John and I are doing and what we are hoping to achieve with our Carrolup Project. Seventy years ago, Aboriginal children of Carrolup ‘reached out’ to white society with their beautiful landscape drawings. Their efforts, […]
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26/01/2019
Judy Atkinson, Member of the Order of Australia (AM)
Author: David Clark on 26/01/2019
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Judy Atkinson: Member of the Order of Australia (AM)

Huge congratulations to Judy Atkinson, who today becomes a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her services to the Indigenous community, to education and to mental health. This is such wonderful news, truly well-deserved.  As I have said a number times, Judy’s book Trauma Trails: Recreational Song Lines […]
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21/01/2019
The Cockburn Range near the Pentecost River. On the right, you can see our transport and campsite.
Author: David Clark on 21/01/2019
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The Healing Power of Country

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 […]
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10/01/2019
Author: David Clark on 10/01/2019
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The Impact of Colonisation on Aboriginal People

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 […]
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08/12/2018
Carrolup School, a healing sanctuary during the time that Noel White was teacher, May 1946 - December 1950. Photographer: John Stanton, 26th November 2018.
Author: David Clark on 08/12/2018
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Recovery From Trauma – Judith Herman (Part 2)

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 […]
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07/12/2018
The children's dormitories at Carrolup today. Photograph taken by John Stanton on 26th November 2018.
Author: John Stanton on 07/12/2018
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Institutionalisation of the Carrolup children

In recent blog posting, David revealed the memories of Carrolup artist Revel Cooper about life on Carrolup in the first half of 1940s, when the children were ‘running wild’. In his most recent posting, he described Revel’s memories of the time when Mrs Elliot was teacher between 1945 […]
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06/12/2018
Some of the Carrolup young artists. Front row: Reynold Hart (Far Left), Parnell Dempster (Middle) and Revel Cooper (Far Right). Back row, 2nd Left: Barry Loo. Do you know who the other boys are?
Author: David Clark on 06/12/2018
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Good relationships are the key to healing trauma – Karen Treisman

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 […]
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05/12/2018
Photographs of three of the Carrolup boys. Sunday Times , 7th July 1945. Retrieved from Trove, National Library of Australia.
Author: David Clark on 05/12/2018
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The Arrival of Mrs Elliot at Carrolup

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 […]
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04/12/2018
The boys and girls of Carrolup outside their school classrooms. Photographer: Noel White in 1948/49. Noel & Lily White Collection.
Author: David Clark on 04/12/2018
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Recovery from trauma – Judith Herman

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 […]
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01/12/2018
Bessel van der Kolk, world-leading expert in trauma and the healing of trauma.
Author: David Clark on 01/12/2018
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Learn the Signs and Symptoms of PTSD – Dr. Bessel van der Kolk

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 […]
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30/11/2018
Mr. and Mrs. White with some of the Carrolup boys and the Peet family. Back row: Barry Loo, Mr. Peet, Noel White, Adrian Allen and Mrs. Peet. Middle row: Lily White and the three Peet girls. Front row: Parnell Dempster, unidentified boy and Reynold Hart. Photograph taken in 1949. Noel & Lily White Collection.
Author: David Clark on 30/11/2018
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Farewell Albany & Project Importance

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. […]
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27/11/2018
Ezzard Flowers and Athol Farmer (right) standing outside the Colgate University Guesthouse where they and John Stanton stayed when visiting Colgate University, Hamilton, New York State, 13th April 2005. Photograph taken by John Stanton. Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia.
Author: John Stanton on 27/11/2018
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Athol Farmer: Maintaining Noongar Heritage

Athol Farmer comes from Gnowangerup, where there was a Mission up until the 1980s. It is now an Education Centre. Athol travelled to Colgate University with Ezzard Flowers and myself back in ’05, to inspect the newly rediscovered collection of Noongar child art from the late 1940s and […]
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26/11/2018
Building Resilient Communities in Gaza: The Center for Mind-Body Medicine.
Author: David Clark on 26/11/2018
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Fulfilling Trauma’s Hidden Promise – James Gordon

Here is a wonderful talk by James Gordon, Founder of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in the US. The Center for Mind-Body Medicine creates communities of hope and healing. It has the world’s largest, most effective evidence-based program for healing population-wide psychological trauma and stress. It brings together a […]
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