First Australian Nation Healing Model

In 2005, a national household survey of drug use reported that twelve percent of Indigenous Australians abused illicit drugs in the previous 12 months compared with eight percent of non-Indigenous Australians (AIHW 2005). Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2014-15 reported that there were 14.7% of Indigenous Australians aged 15 years and over exceeded the lifetime risk, and 30.1% of Indigenous Australians aged 15 years and over exceeded the single occasion risk for alcohol consumption (ABS 2014-15). Indigenous Australian communities were overwhelmed by the high levels of substance abuse, domestic violence, and sexual abuse (Pattel 2007, Putt & Delahunty 2021). However, there is still a knowledge gap in understanding the developmental pathway of the Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) problem among Indigenous Australians. This knowledge gap will hinder the design of a therapeutic model for IndigenousAustralians with AOD problems. The paper proposes a new First Australian Nation Healing Model.

With the arrival of Europeans, the oppression of Aboriginal people began in earnest. Colonisers forced people from their own lands and culture, forced the removal of children from families, segregated Aboriginal people from lifelong connection to the country, and congregated adults and children onto reservations and out-of-town camps. Later, colonial rulers changed to a policy of assimilation, whereby acculturation to Australian mainstream values caused many Aboriginal people to lose their culture, language, and values. The lost values included Security, Conformity, Tradition, Benevolence, Universalism, and Spirituality (Forgarty & White 1994). These values remain important for them to connect themselves with their families, communities, countries, and motherland. Moreover, oppression, dispossession, and exclusion contribute to feelings of anger, self-hatred, despair, hopelessness, and powerlessness. These feelings lead to continuous personal and cultural destruction and disconnection leading to loss of spirit and volitional control. Finally, some people might resort to substance abuse to numb feelings of anger and hurt, and to escape their painful memories, including grieving for loss (Casey & Keen 2004, 2005; Hewlett et al. 2023). AOD problems may also contribute to domestic violence which further tears apart families, communities, and cultures (Amanda et al. 2023). These interdependent issues, brought about through internalised colonisation and oppression, continue to perpetuate the vicious cycle of addiction and its impact on self, family and community.

The proposed First Australian Nation Healing Model explores two important elements in the development of the AOD problem. One is the destruction of collective values (Forgarty & White 1994), and second is the internalised oppressionfeeling of anger and hurt (Hewlett et al. 2023). Once we can find these two elements contributing to the AOD problem, the focus of the treatment of Indigenous Australians is clear. Healing aims to rebuild these collective values and help Indigenous Australians to heal the internalised oppression and feelings of blame, shame, anger, and hurt through learning to forgive and let go of these negative memories. Rebuilding their collective values and healing their hurt and anger will assist Indigenous Australians in recovery from AOD dependency, enabling them to bring to an end the continuous internalised oppression and trans-generational trauma.

A Canadian interviewing methodology is useful when applied to Indigenous Australians. This methodology was based on the Indigenous trauma-healing practice of Empathic Dialogue, which uses empathic listening and storytelling to promote healing. Through mindful respective in listening and sharing, empathic dialogue can create opportunities for spiritual growth and healing (Atkinson 2002). In Empathic Dialogue, there are six stages in the therapeutic procedure: creating safety, finding and telling stories collectively and individually, feeling the feelings and expressing, making sense of the story, layers of loss and grief, and transformation. In the first three phases, this process of storytelling and yarning can facilitate building trust and connection. Then, the practitioners need to reflect their understanding of the client’s story. This process of peeling the layer of their grief and loss will bring tears. However, this dialogue will assist the clients to understand the meaning of their experience and go to the next stage of transformation. Without transformation, simply yarning of intergenerational trauma will not make meaningful progress.

An Indigenous approach to healing honours the inherent interconnectedness of all beings. Healing requests Indigenous people to make as much space in their hearts for everyone, including the offender, victim, and family members. In Indigenous theory, when an Indigenous person is offended or is offended against, Indigenous people are out of balance with themselves, their families and communities, and their Creator. This imbalance causes disconnection. Drug and alcohol abuse is an addiction overruling the person and contributing to more imbalance and disconnection. From an Indigenous perspective, the use of judgment and punishment works against the healing process. Punishment will move an unbalanced person further out of balance. They need to experience a sense of empathy with their human family and all beings and engage in healing that re-evaluates aspects of their cultural identities and individual sense of self. A return of balance can best be achieved through a process of accountability that includes support from the community through teaching and healing (Thibodeau & Nixon 2013, as cited in Ringland 2020).

Healing is a sense of reconciliation for offenders to forgive themselves without excusing their behaviour, as well as accepting responsibility for the past and developing a sense of mastery for the future. Recovery is not just from alcohol and drugs dependence, but for rebuilding a mental state of being. Healing enables Aboriginal people to address their distress, overcome trauma, and restore their wellbeing. It can be done through re-connecting with culture, strengthening identity and traditional role, restoring safe and enduring relationships, and supporting communities. Healing occurs at individual, family, and community levels. The healing process continues throughout a person’s lifetime and across generations (Healing Foundation 2020). Counselling can help heal relationships with others. Perpetrators and all victims struggle with depression, grievance, and feelings of guilt and shame for what their families have been through.

One of the healing approaches is the forgiveness approach, being an intrapersonal process in which the victims release their negative thoughts and feelings for the perpetrators and gain some acceptance of the events (known as the Forgiveness Acceptance Narrative). Forgiveness is not condoning a hurtful action, forgetting the wrong, ignoring the consequence of the hurtful action, or simply cutting the negative thoughts or emotions of hurtful events --- forgiveness is to replace the bitter, angry feelings of vengefulness resulting from hurt with positive feelings of goodwill toward perpetrators (Wade et al. 2005). Forgiveness can free clients from the control that past events have exerted over them and decrease their inclination to project their anger onto others in future relationships (Fitzgibbons 1986 as cited in Wade et al. 2005). Forgiveness can assist in restoring broken relationships and healing inner emotional wounds (DiBlasio & Proctor 1993, p.176 as cited in Wade et al. 2005). By yarning about the hurt and exploring forgiveness, the clients can learn to manage the extra stressor and be empowered to cope with the presenting concern and alleviate those symptoms.

Explicitly discussing forgiveness can result in better outcomes for clients and improve their presenting problems such as depression, anxiety, etc. (Wade et al. 2005). Therefore, if Indigenous Australians can explicitly yarn about acceptance and forgiveness, forgiveness and acceptance can assist clients to work through and resolve their core concerns and then alleviate symptoms or issues that present, such as hurt or anger. Forgiveness can help them move past transgenerational and intergenerational trauma. If Indigenous Australians cannot forgive, they will bear this intergenerational burden and be stuck in a vicious cycle. Therefore, through the Forgiveness Acceptance Narrative approach, yarning and acknowledging past events can assist victim clients in healing their inner emotional wounds and family relationships. On the other hand, the perpetrators also need to forgive the past colonisation done to their ancestors and apologise for their present damage and hurt done to their families and communities. Kohen (2009) addressed that both political reconciliations between groups and personal reconciliation between individual victims and perpetrators are ultimately founded only on the principle of forgiveness.

This paper hypothesises a new First Australian Nation model to help Indigenous clients recover from AOD addictions and interrelated issues. Yarning, a focus on healing, and an approach of forgiveness can help Indigenous people to acknowledge and accept hurt, heal and restore relationships and create better outcomes in their self, families and communities. Each of these needs to be done with purpose and awareness by practitioners of the complex intergenerational trauma that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people carry. By doing so, a paradigm for healing and a model of best-practice can be developed.