Psychoanalytic Reflections on An Experience of Australian Aboriginal Culture

The paper represents reflections on the experience of a week spent as part of the Scientific Advisory Committee of CASSE (Creating a Safe Supportive Environment), as a guest of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress Aboriginal Corporation (CAACAC). The reflections were based on a methodology of “psychoanalytic observation” processed with reference to the ideas of Bion, Ogden, Bolognini, Fairbairn and Scharff and Scharff. A key reflection concerned the significance of the rupture of the traditional cultural container to the current provision of mental health services. A further reflection was on the importance of the functioning of the CASSE/CAACAC reconciliation-based partnership and how this might be enhanced by integrating Scharff and Scharff's (1991) dyadic version of Fairbairn's “Endopsychic Model” and Bion's concept of the container-contained relationship into a theoretical framework about its functioning. At the level of delivery of mental health services the importance of a focus on the commonalities between the Aboriginal and psychoanalytic worldviews is stressed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.