Seven white practitioners: how do they understand and work with Aboriginal trauma?

This thesis lays out the historical and social sources of trauma in the lives of Aboriginal people and juxtaposes them against dominant culture's understanding of trauma and treatment as primarily pertaining to the individual. Concepts like historical trauma are presented and explored, leading to a critique of the DSM (The Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) as unhelpful, and possibly harmful, in its focus on individual pathology. It is argued that without reference to systemic and structural sources of genocidal oppression, standard trauma treatment may prove more damaging than helpful. Interviews were conducted with seven non-Aboriginal women counselors to determine if and how their approaches to trauma treatment reflected an appreciation of colonialism as a source of historical and current trauma. Interview transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis, revealing a pronounced understanding of the traumatic impacts of social injustice on Aboriginal people and the limitations of western counseling approaches. --Leaf ii.