A psychoanalytic exploration of collective trauma among Indigenous Australians and a suggestion for intervention.
OBJECTIVE
Psychoanalysis is used to explore the effects of the annihilation of culture and how this leads to a loss of identification with a collective subjectivity and triggers catastrophic symptoms including loss of collective hope, the rise of addictive and self-destructive behaviours, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma among Indigenous Australian communities.


CONCLUSIONS
I propose restorative educational interventions for young Indigenous children that seek to engage them with ancestral memory, cultural narratives, and a sense of purpose so that healing from historically transmitted trauma may be initiated and a grounded sense of subjectivity restored.
O'Loughlin
Michael
M
School of Education and Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, Garden City, New York 11530, USA. oloughli@adelphi.edu
D001315:Australia; D002648:Child; D003469:Culture; D004493:Education; D006801:Humans; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D013663:Teaching; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000523:psychology*