Foreword, Ursula Kim
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. History and Background
Chapter 1 Mirrored Images: The Story of Many Reflected in One
Aboriginal Family’s Journey
Jackie Stewart and Maria Losurdo
Chapter 2 Gunawirra and the Gunawirra Trauma Project: A
Background
Norma Tracey
Part II. A Theoretical Base for Understanding Trauma in the
Aboriginal Preschool Child
Chapter 3 Building a Floor for Experience: A Model for Thinking
about Children’s Experience
Jeffrey L. Eaton
Chapter 4 Understanding Trauma for Aboriginal Preschool Children:
Hearing Their Voices
Norma Tracey
Chapter 5 The Neurobiological Basis of Trauma in Early
Childhood
Shiri Hergass
Chapter 6 Trauma, Childhood, and Emotional Resilience
Marilyn Charles
Chapter 7 The Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma: Effects on
Identity Development in Aboriginal People
Marilyn Charles
Chapter 8 The Importance of Being Contained: Kylie, for Whom
Nothing
Could Be Held
Celia Conolly and Judy King
Part III. Treating Trauma for the Aboriginal Preschool Child and
Family
Chapter 9 Mr. Carrots Counts the Time
Judy King and Celia Conolly
Chapter 10 The Five Big Ideas: A Road Forward
Norma Tracey and Shiri Hergass
Chapter 11 Using the Weaving Thoughts Peer Method to Generate
Meaning: Putting the Bits and Pieces Together
Ionas Sapountzis and Judy King
Chapter 12 Hitting the Wall: The Hidden Effects of Caring
Relationships
Ingo Lambrecht and Aretha Paterson
Chapter 13 Art as an Opening of a Door to Aboriginal Culture and
Identity
Graham Toomey
Notes on Contributors
Index
Norma Tracey is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with thirty-five years of experience specializing in work with mothers and infants up to age five. She has been a social worker for over fifty years.
The pre-conceptive space created by Tracey and her coworkers shows
the honest and caring holding of the various insidious ways trauma
comes to be manifested at the deepest psychic level in the lives of
3- to 5-year-old children and their respective families. From
screaming to dreaming is the primary focus in the work described
here, especially in the transformation of extinction threat,
persecutory anxiety, and the agonies associated with them. The
reader will be deeply touched by the various authors’ and clients’
ability to achieve with-ness, their being-there capacity, which
speak to our very humanity. This book is more than an account of
clinical efficacy and general trauma theory; it should be read as
an ethical work. The protection of the autochthonous drive remains
a central feature of psychoanalytic thinking, and this work is a
true testament to man’s divine spark.
*Loray Daws, PhD, International Masterson Institute*
The center of this highly successful project is Sydney, Australia,
but implications for trans-generational trauma apply to many
populations and places. Educators, therapists and others working
with or interested in early childhood will benefit. Cultural,
individual and familial trauma is addressed by a wide variety of
modalities. The group is psychoanalytically informed, using art,
social work and traditional Aboriginal dream dialogue, open to
creative resources and needs of the moment. Norma Tracey is a
generative force in this development, with illuminating helpers of
varying nationalities, sensibilities and interests. The work
she has assembled deserves a wide readership as, I feel, it can
benefit child and family work in many settings.
*Michael Eigen, PhD, author of Flames from the Unconscious: Trauma,
Madness and Faith*
The stories of the trauma trails from intergenerational wounds that
are the terrible legacy of Aboriginal people in Australia are
almost too much to bear. However, these stories will continue
unless determined teachers, therapists, and school managers come
together in conversation with local indigenous communities to
construct spaces of healing and to stitch back together narratives
of ancestral lineage and dreaming that have been so cruelly
ruptured. This book provides a powerful illustration of the power
of locally adapted applications of psychodynamic child therapy and
creative arts to enrich the lives of children and teachers, and
reverse some of the damage that dominant society has inflicted on
indigenous Australians.
*Michael O'Loughlin, PhD, Adelphi University*
With its poignant, heartfelt, and detailed descriptions of
creative, psychotherapeutically informed attempts to make a
difference, this is a valuable resource for all who work with
Aboriginal children and their families.
*Louise Gyler, PhD, private practice, Sydney, Australia*
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