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Dr Tracy Westerman

@TracyWesterman

27 Mar

1/A trauma response explainer
Flight/fight/freeze are common responses to trauma. The ability to activate all 3 mechanisms is why people both survive & heal from traumatic events. Part of this is genetic (30%) & biological (ie. what we inherit as a stress response mechanism).

2/The rest is environment-ie. what is modelled; trauma history; the nature of the trauma-personal or sexual assaults increase trauma likelihood; how long the trauma goes on & if you know your perpetrator this increases the odds of developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

3/Post trauma occurs when cognitions become so altered the brain tells the body to see threat everywhere(imagined rather than real). Essentially there is a “misfiring”; ensuring the flight/fight response is activated regardless of threat.Over time this response becomes normalised

Read 6 tweets

Dr Tracy Westerman

@TracyWesterman

27 Mar

*Trigger warning on domestic abuse
1/I have long been concerned there is little discussion, awareness & training on psychological & emotional domestic abuse & its devastating impacts on victims. In many of the worst abusive rships, physical violence is minor or barely present

2/As the family of Hannah Clarke said after she was burnt alive by her ex husband along with her two beautiful children; “Hannah never thought it was abuse because he never hit her”. However, the family had long seen many red flags.

3/It is difficult, almost impossible for victims to see it as abuse as it is insidious and perpetrators deal in cycles of love bombing, covert devaluing, isolation & persecution, which slowly chips away at self worth.

Read 12 tweets

Dr Tracy Westerman

@TracyWesterman

8 Jul 20

1/How 2 get Indigenous Suicide Prevention Right-A thread from (Westerman& Sheridan,2020).
STEP 1.Define causal pathways: We estab a unique set of risk & protective factors exist 4 Indigenous suicide @ a pop'n level via unique psychometrics (WASCY &WASCA) authorservices.wiley.com/api/pdf/fullAr…

2/ We Developed unique, intervention programs based on pop'n, evidence of difference in risk & protective factors spec 2 Aboriginal people. Some findings from Westerman (2003): 42% of youth (N=323) had suicide ideation; 23% considered @ suicide risk. 20% had made previous attempt

3/ Depression was linked with ideation (corr 0.2), BUT impulsivity had the strongest r'ship with suicide risk (youth correlation 0.80; adults 0.63). THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT FINDING with non-Indigenous suicide causally linked with depression. It informed our unique program content

Read 12 tweets

Dr Tracy Westerman

@TracyWesterman

20 Jul 19

A racism thread. Research has shown similar courses of mental illness between victims of violent crime & victims of racism. Epigenetics tells us racism impacts in the same way as a traumatic event. The impulsive nature of Indigenous suicides makes sense from a trauma perspective

The best I can do as a clinician is assist my clients 2 develop robust cultural identity & the skills & resilience to manage racist events. Cultural resilience assessment enables clinicians to ‘treat’ those factors demonstrated 2 buffer suicide risk. This is crucial to prevention

Just as trauma frequently becomes a central organizing principle in the psychological structure of the individual, trauma has become a central organizing principle in the psychological structure of whole communities.

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Dr Tracy Westerman

@TracyWesterman

8 Feb 19

Ok, I’m going to attempt a thread.

When non-Indigenous children suicide, Australians are pointed, and RIGHTLY so, to look for deficits in society or systems. When Indigenous children suicide, Australians are pointed toward the deficits in Indigenous families, in our culture.

This removes the possibility for compassion FOR us, FOR our families, FOR the children’s families. When are we going to have a more empathetic view of Indigenous child suicides and for Indigenous families bereaved by suicide?

The core of this is that we confuse risk factors with causes of suicide and generalise out issues such as abuse, alcohol, FAS as explanations for ALL suicides. It is a "they did it to themselves” mentality that is not only inaccurate, but unhelpful and unkind.

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