Transgenerational Trauma and the Aboriginal Preschool Child

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.

• Foreword, Ursula KimAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I. History and BackgroundChapter 1 Mirrored Images: The Story of Many Reflected in One Aboriginal Family’s JourneyJackie Stewart and Maria LosurdoChapter 2 Gunawirra and the Gunawirra Trauma Project: A BackgroundNorma TraceyPart II. A Theoretical Base for Understanding Trauma in the Aboriginal Preschool ChildChapter 3 Building a Floor for Experience: A Model for Thinking about Children’s ExperienceJeffrey L. EatonChapter 4 Understanding Trauma for Aboriginal Preschool Children: Hearing Their VoicesNorma TraceyChapter 5 The Neurobiological Basis of Trauma in Early ChildhoodShiri HergassChapter 6 Trauma, Childhood, and Emotional ResilienceMarilyn CharlesChapter 7 The Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma: Effects on Identity Development in Aboriginal PeopleMarilyn CharlesChapter 8 The Importance of Being Contained: Kylie, for Whom NothingCould Be HeldCelia Conolly and Judy KingPart III. Treating Trauma for the Aboriginal Preschool Child and FamilyChapter 9 Mr. Carrots Counts the TimeJudy King and Celia ConollyChapter 10 The Five Big Ideas: A Road ForwardNormaTracey and Shiri HergassChapter 11 Using the Weaving Thoughts Peer Method to Generate Meaning: Putting the Bits and Pieces TogetherIonas Sapountzis and Judy KingChapter 12 Hitting the Wall: The Hidden Effects of Caring RelationshipsIngo Lambrecht and Aretha PatersonChapter 13 Art as an Opening of a Door to Aboriginal Culture and IdentityGraham Toomey Notes on ContributorsIndex