Reviewed by Norrie Sanders
The Pilbara is not a place for the faint of heart. Home to Marble Bar’s Warmest welcome from Australia’s hottest town, it is a harsh and stunning land of rocky peaks, gorges and arid plains. To survive, let alone thrive, requires a special toughness and resilience. The first inhabitants of the Pilbara have survived and thrived for over 40,000 years, but only one of them, Dr Tracy Westerman, became the first to complete a doctorate in Clinical Psychology. And that was just the start of her professional achievements.
Jilya is two entwined stories – Tracy’s personal journey and her crusade to develop effective solutions to indigenous mental health. Her journey is remarkable enough, but the way she has dedicated her many skills to changing countless lives, is her enduring legacy.
It’s a story of significant pain, but also of healing …. a story of what is possible with drive and determination, and of how hope can be the difference this country so badly needs. … Ultimately, though, it is a story of love for my people (pxiii).
At the core of the of the book are chapters on common themes of mental health, but analysing the particular issues facing indigenous Australia – black identity; grief and loss; love, fear and attachment; trauma, racism and violence; the communities and suicide prevention. The remaining chapters, no less important, are about her early days and education, the problems with established mental health approaches and how she has gone about changing clinical methods. Each theme blends science and statistics with her personal experience and case studies.
Tracy’s descriptions are both disturbing and enlightening. Her diagnosis is that effective management of indigenous mental health requires a total rethink of why the problems are manifest. Culture is at the heart of it and, without a deep understanding of the impacts of culture and racism, misdiagnosis will continue. She cites the example of government-initiated child removals from families, which statistically is much more likely for indigenous families. Yet when indigenous psychologists are the case officers, removal rates are far lower as culturally based solutions are found.
How on earth do you unpack the difference between someone experiencing psychosis and someone seeing spirits of deceased loved ones as part of cultural grief?
I had to think on my feet because nothing had been published that accepted a spiritual dimension could be anything other than a diagnosable mental illness (p46).
Rather than just confine herself to one-on-one treatments, Tracy set out to build tools, techniques and educational programs to vastly multiply the effectiveness of her approaches. And much of this has been paid for from her own pocket, although she has more recently succeeded in attracting large sums from donors and the public. Ironically, despite lauding her as Australian of the Year (WA), government funding has been practically non-existent.
She criticises governments and fellow (non-indigenous) practitioners for lack of support and recognition for her culture-specific approaches. Yet these approaches could contribute significantly to closing the gap, particularly on major issues like youth suicide and incarceration.
This book is worth reading, but it is a hard read. Hard because mental health and racist attitudes are disturbing issues. Hard because her clinical understanding is sophisticated and many of the concepts are complex. Finally, it is hard to hear of her many frustrations about peer and government support. But Tracy tells us that she doesn’t “do failure” and her success in learning how to solve issues, deliver educational programs and secure non-government funding has already begun to pay dividends. Let us hope that in the near future, this will be mainstream.
Dr Tracy Westerman is a proud Nyamal woman from the Pilbara region of Western Australia. She has a PhD in Psychology and is the owner and founder of Indigenous Psychological Services and founder and Executive Chair of the Westerman Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health. She is a recognised world leader in Aboriginal mental health, cultural competency and suicide prevention, achieving national and international recognition for her work. She has received many awards including an Order of Australia, Telstra Women’s Business Award Winner (WA) and Australian of the Year (WA).
Jilya: How one Indigenous woman from the remote Pilbara transformed psychology
(September 2024)
by Tracy Westerman
University of Queensland Press
ISBN: 978 070226 869 4
$34.99 (Paperback); 308pp