ABOUT

How This Book Came About

My name is Christabel. While my training at University to become a Clinical Psychologist was extremely valuable, my real learning has derived from the men and women I have worked with over the years who have told me their life stories, their problems and what I offered that was useful to them. Having decided when I turned 60 years old that my life task from now on is to pass on anything useful that I have learned to anyone who is interested, I wondered if my way of working would be of help within Aboriginal communities. Fremantle Prison was the first place where I met and made friends with Aboriginal people and I learned about their stories. When I made the journey to Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek I was pleased to find that my ways of working on healing the long-term effects of adversity and trauma in childhood were felt to be relevant and compatible with traditional ways and culture.  I shared my simple 5 diagrams to help people understand why members of their families were hurting and in trouble, and I was asked to produce some information sheets and descriptions of what I do so that people could be reminded of what they had learned and be able to share and pass on how it had helped them to others in their families.

About Christabel Chamarette

I am a Clinical Psychologist with 44 years of experience in counselling people in crisis and with people who have suffered trauma in their early lives – 10 years with men in Fremantle Prison, 8 years with women who were adult survivors of child sexual abuse, violence and neglect. For 12 years I was also Director of SafeCare, a family counselling service which ran from 1989 – 2009 and provided counselling for all family members (men, women and children) who were coping child sexual abuse. Since May 2013, I have spent half my time in private practice in Fremantle and the other half in the Kimberley region of WA at the Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre in Fitzroy Crossing and Yura Yungi Aboriginal Medical Service in Halls Creek.