48: First Nations Perspective on Social, Emotional and Mental Wellbeing with Professor Pat Dudgeon

Clearhead acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and acknowledges their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures and the Elders past and present.

Suicide rates among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are more than three times those of non-Indigenous Australians. In this episode, we will explore First Nations approaches to developing indigenous models of psychology and suicide prevention projects and how they differ from Western models. We learn the importance of empowering communities to develop solutions that reflect their own strengths, knowledge, and lived experience, which includes the impact of colonisation, trauma and racism.

Pat’s biography: Our guest today is Professor Pat Dudgeon AM, a Bardi woman from Western Australia. She is a professor at the School of Indigenous Studies at The University of Western Australia. She is also the Director of the Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention, the lead Chief Investigator for the national Transforming Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing research project. Finally, she was also part of a group of Indigenous psychologists who developed the widely used Social and Emotional Wellbeing model. In this episode, we dive deep into answering the following thorny questions.

00:00 – Introduction 02:15 – Why Pat became an Indigenous psychologist 06:20 – The emergence of Indigenous psychology 07:25 – The Australian Indigenous Psychology Education Project 10:00 – The Australian Psychological Society’s apology to Indigenous people 11:55 – The impact of colonisation on Indigenous mental health 13:35 – Findings from Indigenous suicide prevention research 15:15 – How Indigenous psychology differs from Western models 17:35 – The Social and Emotional Wellbeing model and its determinants 24:00 – How Indigenous-led models are used in clinical practice 28:45 – What clinicians need to deliver culturally responsive mental health care 30:15 – Creating inclusive workplaces for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees 32:55 – The impact of racism on Indigenous suicide rates 35:30 – The impact of the 2023 Voice referendum on Indigenous people 37:20 – Programs that strengthen cultural identity and combat racism 40:55 – Why cultural identity can be a protective factor 43:40 – What happened to Indigenous populations following colonisation 45:20 – The power of truth-telling in reconciliation 47:15 – Co-design and upholding Indigenous self-determination 50:20 – Indigenous suicide prevention projects that have worked 52:50 – Learning from projects that have failed 58:00 – Pat’s personal wellbeing practice

Learn more about Professor Pat Dudgeon and her work: https://boorn.org.au/ https://timhwb.org.au/ https://indigenouspsyched.org.au/

Learn more about Clearhead https://www.myclearhead.com/