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Whither Goeth
the World - Humanity or Barbarity? The Life Work
of Dr. Neville T. Yeomans
Email: lspencre@alphalink.com.au Two Poems Written by Dr. Neville Thomas Yeomans The Inma There seems to be a new
spirituality going around - or a philosophy – or is it an ethical and moral
movement, or a feeling? Anyway, this Inma religion
or whatever it is – what does it believe in? It believes in the
coming-together, the inflow of alternative human energy, from all over the
world. It believes in an
ingathering and a nexus of human persons values, feelings, ideas and actions. Inma believes in the
creativity of this gathering together and this connexion of persons and
values. It believes that these
values are spiritual, moral and ethical, as well as humane, beautiful, loving
and happy. Inma believes that persons
may come and go as they wish, but also it believes that the values will stay
and fertilize its area, and it believes the nexus will cover the
globe. Inma believes that Earth
loves us and that we love Earth. It believes that from the
love and from the creativity will come a new model for the world of human
future. It believes that we have
started that future - now. I guess that if you and I
believe these things we are Inma. On Where Perhaps
somewhere there is an unimportant place caught between East and West, North
and South, Past and Future. It is so far
behind that it can only go forward. Its indigenous
people are so badly treated they will risk anything for a better life. Its white
overlords are so distant from the center of their own culture that they don’t
know where to go except to Self Government. It is wealthy,
industrial, consumer, under-populated and chaotic. It has
tropical coasts and islands. It has cool mountains and tablelands. It is closer
to Asian and Melanesian peoples than its own capital city, and it often sees
itself as the end of the earth. Yet the desires
of some of its citizens are: to build the first free territory
guided by global humane laws to implement the UN covenants on Human
Rights to give migrants, visitors and native
born an equal say to accept ideas, people and music of
living from all over to welcome and respect every
interested person to love Planet Earth, and to take a next step towards a happier
more beautiful more human community. Maybe one such
place is called Northern Queensland, Australia. But an
Aboriginal word meaning 'a coming together' is Inma. Together these poems provide a feel for the subject
matter of this Thesis. I first received these two poems at Neville Yeomans’
funeral in March 2000. CONTENTS CONTENTS TWO POEMS WRITTEN BY DR. NEVILLE THOMAS YEOMANS CHAPTER ONE - A WARM DECEMBER MORNING AND A DAY IN AUTUMN A LITTLE KNOWN EXTRAORDINARY AUSTRALIAN PHOTOS Photo 1 The Mango Tree out the window of Neville’s Yungaburra house. 19 Photo 2 We sat at this bench as we ate paw paw and talked. Photo 3 Neville lost in the bush - A painting by L Spencer. Photo 4 A Photo of Neville in his later years.
Dr. Neville Thomas Yeomans at his desk at Fraser House - Circa 1961 ACKNOWLEDGING The research breadth went hand-in-hand with the support of many. I acknowledge the Indigenous people of Australasia SE Asia Oceania Region who have been so much a part of the social action at the heart of this Thesis. I also acknowledge the members of my family who lived with the myriad small and large consequences of my involvement in this prolonged and time consuming endeavor. My profound respect for Dr. Neville Yeomans is woven into this work. My kindred enablers/supporters are integral - Marj Roberts, Mareja Bin Juda, Norma Perrott, Nasuven Enares and her sisters Joyce Morris (deceased) and Phyllis Corowa, Faith Bandler, Geoff Guest, Terry Widders, Alex Dawia, Rob Buschkens, Jules and Chris Collingwood, John Lonergon and others who know who they are. My other interviewees all had zest and were so willing - Margaret Cockett, Warwick Bruen, Phil Chilmaid, Stephanie Yeomans, Stephanie and Ken Yeomans’ Daughters, Allan and Ken Yeomans, Terry O’Neill, Dr. Ned Iceton, Professor Alfred Clark and the Fraser House Patient and Outpatient. Financial support at key times was provided by the Jessie Street Foundation, Down to Earth (Vic) and the Gippsland Catholic Diocese through Jim Connelly. Stimulating sustained support came from Zuzenka Kutena, Dr. Elizabeth DeCastro, Judith Goldsworthy, Gregory Leonhart, Dihan Wijewickrama, Andrew Cramb, Don Foster, Mary and David Cruise, and Dr. Werner Pelz. Also providing crucial support at key stages were Elsbeth Stephens, Steve Andreas, Greg Burgess, Richard Clements, Andres Kabel, Barry McQueen, Richard Maidment, Vic Morrant, and Jim Vickers-Willis. Rich perspectives were provided by my fellow JCU research students and Dr. Sue McGinty and her husband Dr. Tony McMahon’s during the Qualitative Research Seminars. Tony as my supervisor provided sustained caring tight academic support that was fundamental. I acknowledge the profound connexity of Mother Earth and the Web of Life source of life Inma - towards a caring humane respectful sustained Epoch. ABSTRACT This qualitative naturalistic inquiry research explores psychiatrist barrister Dr. Neville Yeomans’ lifelong action towards enabling gentle transitions from the current non-sustainable inequitable inhumane exploitative Global epoch to a humane life-affirming one. The research’s three interconnected areas specify firstly the precursors and structures/processes used by Yeomans in establishing Australia’s first psychiatric therapeutic community ‘Fraser House’ in 1959; secondly, Fraser House outreaches; and thirdly, the evolving of the Laceweb Social Movement through the SE Asia Oceania Australasia Region. Yeomans ways of social action are traced to his collaborating with his
father P.A. Yeomans and brothers Allan and Ken in evolving Keyline
sustainable agricultural practice informed by Australasian indigenous people’s experience. The research specifies Dr. Yeomans’ adapting of
indigenous socio-healing/socio-medicine ways and Keyline to the psychosocial
and psychobiological fields in evolving processes he called, ‘Cultural
Keyline’. The research documents Yeomans’
evolving Fraser House as a dysfunctional fringe epochal change model –
patient self-governance and law/rule making via patient-based committees, and
through this, patients and outpatients assuming all of
the hospital administration roles, including initial patient assessment,
treatment, sanctions, ex-patient domiciliary support, research, crisis
support to the surrounding communities and training psychiatrists in
community psychiatry. Yeomans’ pioneering of Big Group Therapy (100-180
attending), including all patients and all staff on duty, and patients’
family/friends/workmates as outpatients is documented. Some of Yeomans’
leader roles and Big Group/Small Group processes are specified. Small group
therapy with membership based on rotating sociological categories is described Fraser House
outreaches energized by Yeomans are outlined including: his use of advisory
roles to legitimate and protect this social action; his pioneering role as
New South Wales’ first Director of Community Mental Health; his setting up
Australia’s first Community Mental Health Unit in Paddington NSW; his
enabling of the Paddington Festival in 1969 towards starting Paddington
Bazaar to surround this Unit; his energizing of intercultural festivals,
gatherings and artistic happenings in the 1960/70s; his evolving of
intercultural wellbeing networks among Asians and Africans; his adapting and
disseminating of Cultural Keyline to business and other organizations; his
entering as an independent candidate in the 1969 Federal election, his
writing of newspaper columns, his pioneering of mediation in many fields in
Australia, and his contributing to Divorce Law Reform and the inclusion of
family counseling/mediation in Family Law. The evolving of the Laceweb networks amongst Indigenous and other intercultural healers in the Region supporting self-help/ mutual-help amongst Indigenous/Small Minorities trauma survivors, and stopping dysfunction among them is traced to Fraser House and Yeomans’ seminal role in enabling Aboriginal Human Relations Gatherings in 1971, 1972 and 1973 in North East New South Wales. Yeomans sustained action research enabling networking among indigenous/intercultural natural nurturers in the Region are specified including, his setting up a number of small Therapeutic Community Houses in Northern Queensland, and extending the Fraser House model in evolving an International Normative Model Area in Northern Queensland as a model exploring World Order Governance. The research concludes with Yeomans’ writings about his macro-framework for epochal change over the next 200 years, and with future possibilities for the Laceweb. CHAPTER ONE - A WARM DECEMBER MORNING AND A DAY IN AUTUMN The topic of this Thesis, ‘Whither Goeth The World – Humanity or Barbarity’ entailed researching the history, theory and practice leading to the evolving of the Laceweb social movement among Indigenous and intercultural healers through the SE Asia Oceania Australasia Region This Chapter introduces the life work of Dr. Neville Yeomans, discusses the significance of the topic, outlines the nature of the research and the research questions, and discusses why they are important. It also discusses briefly the story of how I became involved with this project and the way my biogeography has led me to undertake this research. An outline of the rest of the Thesis is included. Because of the expansiveness of the subject, some of the matters that will be treated in some depth in this research are introduced briefly in this Chapter. This thesis explores Dr. Neville Yeomans’ role in evolving social action with the aim of enabling a gentle transition from the current Global epoch to a new humane and life-affirming one with new forms of social realities respecting and embracing diversity and having resonance with traditional Indigenous relating to the Web of Life. One aspect of this change is fostering regionality and locality in a life-world where every aspect is recognizing, respecting, celebrating, fostering, and sustaining the inter-connectedness of humane nurturing values and the diversity of all life forms and networks. The title of the thesis, ‘Whither Goeth the World – Humanity or Barbarity’ is resonant with Dr. Yeomans’ quest for Epochal change. This title is an adaptation of a title used by Dr. Yeomans, ‘Whither Goeth the Law – Humanity or Barbarity’ (Carlson and Yeomans 1975a; Carlson and Yeomans 1975b) I have elected to use Dr. Neville Yeomans’ first name in the balance of this Research as a mark of my profound respect for him. For me he is Neville, not ‘Yeomans’. We had a working friendship for over 13 years. Neville was of immense support in times of crisis in my life. A LITTLE KNOWN EXTRAORDINARY AUSTRALIAN Dr.
Neville Thomas Yeomans, a little known extraordinary Anglo-Australian
humanitarian was born in 1928 to Percival and Rita Yeomans and died in
Brisbane in May 2000. Neville grew up in a stimulating household. As an
adolescent he worked in sustainable agriculture with his father P. A. Yeomans
who was described by the World famous English agriculturalist Lady Balfour as
the person making the greatest contribution to sustainable agriculture in the
past 200 years (Mulligan and Hill 2001). Neville Yeomans worked closely with his father and
brother Allan (and later younger brother Ken) in pioneering a sustainable
agriculture process called Keyline (Yeomans 1955; Yeomans 1958; Yeomans 1958; Yeomans
1965; Yeomans 1971; Yeomans 1971; Yeomans and Yeomans 1993). Neville adapted Keyline as ‘Cultural Keyline’ and
pioneered this in the fields of psychiatry, sociology of medicine, social
psychology, psychobiology, intercultural studies, peace studies, humanitarian
law and global governance. All
of Nevilles and his father’s work was informed and guided by a relational
familiarity with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wisdom
about the social and natural life worlds. While non-Aboriginal people had
seen Australia as a harsh and hostile place to be conquered and tamed,
Aboriginal and Islander people had a loving and affectionate relation to
Earth as their nurturing mother – a profoundly different relating. Neville
encapsulated this relating in the words of his Inma poem, ‘Inma believes that Earth loves us and that we love
Earth’. Neville and his father’s work and way were guided and informed
by this ancient loving caring tradition. In preparing for his humanitarian life work, Neville obtained degrees in zoology and then medicine/psychiatry. He completed postgraduate studies in sociology and psychology with accompanying extensive reading in history, anthropology and peace studies. He followed with a degree in law, specializing in humanitarian law, and law studies in mediation as an alternative to adversarial law in dispute settlement (Carlson and Yeomans 1975a; Carlson and Yeomans 1975b). During the 1970s, he studied spoken and written Chinese and Indonesian, as well as Chinese painting. Amongst his other studies Neville studied 12 months at the Criminology Law School at the University of Sydney. As part of his quest to become sensitive to the intercultural nuances of the Region, Neville studied at a Technical College for eighteen months in Indonesian language and twelve months in Mandarin language both as spoken and written languages. He remained an avid reader and engaged in continuous action research throughout his life. Neville commenced his endeavors with what he called the ‘mad and
bad’ people of Sydney. Neville said that he recognized that in 1959, with
considerable upheaval and questioning in the area of mental health in NSW,
and a Royal Commission being mooted into past practices, there was a small
window of opportunity for innovation. Neville started his epochal quest in
earnest by setting up the psychiatric unit, Fraser House, in the grounds of
the North Ryde Psychiatric Hospital in 1959. He obtained permission to have
half of the patient intake from prisons so that he could explore self-help
possibilities among the ‘mad and bad’ at the fringe of society. In psychiatry, Neville was a World leader in therapeutic
community, full family therapeutic community, community mental health, and
large group therapy. Many of the iconoclastic practices that he introduced
into psychiatry are now standard practice in Australia. He pioneered suicide
support and other life crisis telephone services, the running of
multicultural community markets and festivals and other multicultural events,
and alternative lifestyle festivals. Neville also influenced the introduction
of family counseling and family mediation into family law in Australia and
mediation into Australian society. He was also responsible for energizing
praxis networks in such diverse, though related fields as social work,
criminology, family counseling, community services, community mental health,
prison administration, business management, intercultural relations, psychosocial
self-help groups, social ecology, futures studies, self organizing systems,
qualitative method, World order, and Global, Regional, and Local Governance. While the many things Neville Yeomans pioneered are now known by many in Australia and around the World, very few know he was the initiator. The (Sydney) Sun newspaper included Neville’s groundbreaking work in psychiatry and therapeutic community with six other Australians under the heading, ‘The Big Seven Secrets Australians were first to solve’ (17 July, 1963). Dr. Neville Yeomans was included with people like Sir John Eccles, Sir Norman Greg and Dr. V. M Coppleson. How all these diverse social actions are related and interlinked by Dr. Neville Yeomans and others are the foci of this Thesis This research traces Neville Yeomans fostering of the
emergence of a social movement he called the Laceweb evolving amongst
oppressed Indigenous and Small Minorities in the SE Asia Oceania Australasian
Region. Wellbeing action by
Indigenous, Small Minority and intercultural psychosocial healers and natural
nurturers has been evolving in the Region for over 40 years. This network of
‘natural nurturers’ continues to evolve. Some of the focal people now engaged
in the Laceweb movement that emerged from Neville’s Sydney action are among
the most oppressed and marginalized people in Far North Queensland and around
the Darwin Top End. They are Aboriginal and Islanders and other people such
as East Timorese, West Papuans, Bougainvillians and others from oppressed
minority groups in the Region with small populations. Global governance
organizations call them ‘Small Minorities’. These focal people are mainly
women. Neville’s term for these informal networkers was ‘natural nurturers’
as they are engaged in self-help and mutual help as they go about their
everyday lives. The research explores Neville’s claim that he was
actioning a three hundred year-plus project - Laceweb action evolving humane
transition processes towards a more humane caring nurturing epoch; one that
respects the Earth and all life on it. This research traces the evolving of Laceweb networks in
the Region supporting
self-help and mutual-help amongst Indigenous
and Small Minorities’ trauma
survivors, as well as supporting the resolving of domestic violence,
oppression of women and children, sexual abuse, substance abuse, criminal and
psychiatric incarceration, and other dysfunction towards evolving a humane
caring nurturing Way of life as exemplars of Epochal change. Neville had
first hand experience of this dysfunction in growing up near remote
aboriginal communities. At the same time he recognized that indigenous holistic
communal process sustaining social cohesion had potency in resolving the
above dysfunction - what Neville
called Cultural Healing Action. THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS While aspects of this endeavor have been the subject of a PhD (Clark 1969), and other research and writings in the past (Yeomans 1961; Yeomans 1961; Webb and Bruen 1968; Clark and Yeomans 1969; Watson 1970, p 109; Paul and Lentz 1977; Yeomans 1980, p.64; Yeomans 1980; Wilson 1990, Ch 6, p. 71-85; Clark 1993, p. 61, 117) this will be the first research that attempts to draw the many aspects of the above and related social action together. It took a number of months
of reflection and discussions with Neville and my Supervisor for three
‘natural’ parts to emerge - Fraser House, Fraser House outreach and the
evolving of the Laceweb. The research questions emerged from this cleavering. The research questions are: 1.
What were the theoretical and action precursors to,
and the nature of the structuring and processes used by Neville Yeomans in
evolving and sustaining the psychiatric unit Fraser House? 2.
What change processes, innovations and social action
evolved in and from Fraser House? With what effect? 3.
What is the Laceweb? What is its structure and
process, and how has it being evolving and sustained? 4.
What patterns and integration are there linking
aspects of Neville Yeomans’ work - Fraser House, Fraser House outreach and
the Laceweb? 5.
What possible futures may emerge from Laceweb praxis As the Thesis is investigating something with so many facets, I had to make decisions about my research focus and what was to be included and excluded. I have elected to report extensively on structure, process and their connexity while providing a broad feel for their fit in the interstices of Neville’s massive endeavor. In order to cope with the extent and complex richness of my focal interests, the following are excluded. Firstly, while outlining and answering the criticisms others have made about Neville and Fraser House, I do not engage in identifying shortcomings, or criticizing his life work. I have gathered together material that others may use for further research including critique and evaluation. The limits I set to my research have still left me with a massive endeavor. Secondly, I report on Neville’s extensive life work and public persona and the public life of Fraser House staff. I exclude research concerning his personal life while acknowledging and recognizing this was and is fundamental to an understanding of the man. In fact, Neville recognized and made restricted file notes on issues in his and other Fraser House senior staff’s private lives that were reflected in the dynamics of Fraser House. Neville drew attention to the ethical dilemmas in research where adequate writing up of a case would give sufficient material to identify focal people to their potential harm. Neville made suggestions in a short monograph to the World Health Organization that may address these dilemmas about research protocols including anonyminity of individuals, institutions and nations where important, though social delicate research, is being conducted (Yeomans 1965, Vol. 12, p. 129-130). Thirdly, while researching the evolving and the nature of the Laceweb social movement, the Laceweb networks themselves have not been researched. I have scant links to these networks and I am not cleared to share information. Fourthly, while the social action being researched has drawn on Australian and Oceania Indigenous socio-medicine and other social and community social cohesion knowledge and way, this thesis only briefly describes some of these without going into detail. I do not re-present or speak for anyone. LIFE CHANGES I was privileged to be mentored by Neville over a
fourteen-year period from 1986 to 2000. Neville arranged for me to engage in
sustained action research into every aspect of his life work. I
researched and wrote this Thesis with his blessing, encouragement,
cooperation and support. Further, I carried out this research so that
Australians and the World would know more about this man. With the inhumane
self serving behavior of sections of the World traumatizing and
exploiting/harming the majority of the Earth’s population and fast destroying
our children’s’ future, Neville’s lifework is timely, practical, seminal and
potent. This Thesis makes his life work accessible. I first met Neville in the mid 1980’s. At first all I knew about
him was that he was a psychiatrist who had just come back from doing a really
interesting workshop on powerful brief therapeutic processes – NLP Sensory
Submodality Processes (Bandler, Andreas
et al. 1985; Andreas and Andreas 1987). At the time I knew nothing of
Fraser House or Neville’s wider work. I attended the workshop he was
co-facilitating in Balmain, Sydney. I was taken with the ecology of the man.
He was precise and thorough, and incredible quick in sensing everyone in the
group. I had never met anyone like him. He singled me out as a resonant
person. At lunch on both days of the workshop we shared life stories related
to working with groups and change processes. He specifically engaged me on my
academic and work experience. By the end of that lunch, he knew I had a
Social Science degree in Sociology and a Behavioral Science Honors Degree in
Psychology. My honors research was in clinical psychology and I had completed
postgraduate studies in neuro-psychology. He knew I had been eligible to do
PhD level research since 1981. He also knew of, and could see ‘fit’ in my
prior degree-level industry studies in actuarial and financial services to
become a Fellow of the Australian Insurance Institute by examination. He also
saw resonance in my Diploma level studies in Personnel Management and
Organizational Training and Development. I was for a time a member of the
Australian Institute of Personnel Management and the Australian Institute of
Training and Development. Neville delighted in my revelation that I had been sacked from
most of my jobs for provoking the system to change; at the time I did not know
that Neville worked with the resources on the margins. At that first meeting
I had no idea that Neville was a constant networker and that he was checking
me out as to how I might fit and be interested in the social action he was
engaged in. We discussed my consulting work supporting CEOs of multinational
companies on organizational change, and psychosocial group process at the
senior executive level. I found out later that he had seen ‘fit’ in all
aspects of my background including my security consulting work in electronic
article surveillance. I had my training in counseling from Terry O’Neill at the
Student Counseling Unit at La Trobe University in the late 1970’s and was an
on-call para-professional crisis counselor in the La Trobe University Student
Counseling Center for eighteen months. I found out shortly after meeting
Neville that Terry based his way of counseling largely on Terry’s voluntary
work at Fraser House and the influence of Neville in the 1960’s. When I told Neville about Terry training
me in counseling this further strengthened his interest in me as a potential
resource. Because of my psychosocial community and group therapy
experience, much of it subsequently in groups with Neville, and my brief
therapy skills, Neville arranged for me to provide 18 months in-service
training and mentoring support to a psychologist friend of his working within
a medium security special protection prison facility. This involved my
co-facilitating, along with the jail psychologist, groups of 12 inmates as
well as mentoring the jail psychologist on one-on-one work. Neville
specifically broached my potential to research his lifework via a PhD in
1992. Key things for Neville were
that I was eligible to do a PhD and also, that I had experienced major trauma
in my life. I knew from personal experience about trauma self-help. In
Queensland in 1993 he again went thoroughly into all my background although
the chatting was laid back. Little did I know then how my entire blend of
background ‘fitted’ his interests and foci. It seems that I was potentially
the person he had been looking for for more than 20 years (Yeomans 1980; Yeomans 1980, p. 64;
Yeomans 1980). He quietly suggested me doing a PhD on
his life work a number of times in the following years. By 1997, he was keen for me to get started as he knew he was in
real trouble with his health and that it was life threatening. When I told
him in July 1998 that I was starting a PhD on his life he was elated. I could
literally see his mind clicking. He was checking for fit. Then he said a big,‘Yes! Your background
is perfect!’ I knew in large part this was because of my dysfunctionality as
well as my experience and abilities. As discussed throughout this research,
Neville had great faith in the dysfunctional fringe. A WARM DECEMBER MORNING This thesis is about people connecting with each other and
discovering and learning from and supporting each other. I will share a few
things that may support you in connecting with the pith and moment of this
research and how I came to be doing it. Neville Yeomans and I are eating paw
paw in Yungaburra. It is a warm December morning in 1993 – in the lush
greenness of the tropics of Far North Queensland, Australia. Neville and I
are having a good time in friendly banter. Through the open window of Neville’s
heritage listed large bungalow type house comes the sweet smell of hundreds
of over-ripe mangoes on an immense tree. The air is permeated with the fragrance of frangipani and other
tropical flowers. Going back there in memory now, my longtime friend and
colleague and I are engaged in a casual conversation of significance. We are
talking about the origins of the passions that have energized and interwoven
our lives. Neville has no hesitation in saying that a defining moment in the
origins of his passions occurred in 1931 when he was three years old. He
recalls becoming separated from his parents and being lost in the hot arid
desert of Western Queensland.
Photo 1 The Mango Tree out the window of Neville’s Yungaburra house
Photo 2 We sat at this bench as we ate paw paw and talked.
Photo 3 Neville lost in the bush - A painting by L Spencer. In wandering away from his parents as a three year old, Neville
had been absorbed in minutia - looking at the little plants and pebbles.
After a time his body demanded his attention away from the pebbles. He was
becoming parched. His mouth and lips were becoming very dry. His attention
flits again to the pebbles. Then everything begins to shimmer. Every
direction seems the same. His legs go to jelly and the world begins to tilt
all over the place as he crashes to the ground from heat exhaustion. Neville
vividly remembers his near death delirium. Being a bright little three year
old, he knows about death and that he is about to die. He desperately longs
to live to make the world a better place. In delirium, emotions sweep him.
Awful dread mingles with immense love - and all this is reaching out for love and nurturing and all their
possibilities. In his near-death delirium little Neville sees a shimmering
black giant coming towards him and feels being gently picked up. Neville
feels the giant’s gentleness - strong yet soft - and presently he feels the
cool fresh water that gently touches his lips, and is being poured on his
body, and assuaging his raging thirst. Then, still in delirium, Neville feels
being carried for a time and then passed by the Aboriginal tracker who had
found him to nurturing Aboriginal women and he is ‘home’ again and his
yearning is being full-filled. The above piece was confirmed by Neville in September 1998 as
encapsulating the feel of his experience. It was part of my first writing
that reduced Neville to tears. Neville, in the care of these Aboriginal women had personal
experience of Aboriginal socio-medicine. He knew from his own experiencing of
it that Aboriginal socio-medicine is powerful. Psychiatrist Richard Cawte has
written of Aboriginal socio-medicine (Cawte 1974; Cawte 2001). I understand Indigenous socio-medicine
to entail a wide range of social processes with a central aim of community
social cohesion and wellbeing. Aboriginal socio-medicine links the psychosocial
with the psychobiological through special forms of embodied social
interaction. Neville experienced and embodied this link. Neville spoke of
how, during the years of his childhood, he constantly returned to his desert
delirium experience as he was forming his very big dream of doing things that
would make the World profoundly different. The dreaming evolved as an action
quest. Neville said that from that traumatic experience, what he was
exploring and mulling over all the time as a child and later as an
adolescent, was how could he enable an Epochal transition. He was talking of
enabling a shift of the magnitude of the one from the Feudal System to the
Industrial System in England. He read up on how that transition occurred. He
was passionate about how he could link with others in enabling a Global
Epochal transition to a humane, nurturing, sustainable social-life-world. He
was talking about a life-world that is respecting, celebrating and sustaining
diversity of all life forms and networks on the biosphere. He kept asking
himself, how would someone do that? How could he do that? He realized that it
may take up to 300 years to do. And if it takes a few life times to do this,
what could he do that would set up action that was self-energizing and self-organizing;
processes that could, no - would
withstand the withering ways of the current epoch in decline as it seeks by
any means to maintain itself. What processes could enable reconstituting to
continue through time, to finish the transition? Even on hearing Neville saying words like these in 1993, it
never occurred to me that that was what he was really attempting to do. Subsequently, a number of people I
interviewed about Neville all confirmed the epochal focus of his social
action. Margaret Cockett, his personal Assistant at and after Fraser House,
Stephanie Yeomans, his Sister-in-law, and Stuart Hill, a Professor of Social
Ecology at University of Western Sydney, all said that Neville had said
similar things to the above in talking with them about the emergence of his
quest from his childhood sociomedicine experience. As well, Paul Wilson, who
was for a time Head of the Australian Institute of Criminology and now Dean
of the School of Humanities at Bond University, implies the same
understanding of Neville’s quest in his writing (Wilson 1990, Ch. 6). Neville went on to tell me a story that was similar to his being
lost in the bush. In 1943, Neville’s father co-purchased with his
brother-in-law Jim Barnes, two adjacent properties totaling 1000 acres at
North Richmond, one hour West of Sydney in NSW (Mulligan and Hill 2001; Hill 2002; Hill
2002). In the next year when Neville was
sixteen, a second defining episode occurred. Neville was out riding on his
horse Ginger on one of their properties with his Uncle Jim (Barnes) when they
were caught in a grassfire that was being fanned by powerful winds. Jim
yelled to Neville to dismount and squeeze into the hollow of a dead tree and
cover himself to shield the radiant heat. The firestorm was coming towards
them at phenomenal speed. The fire front was long. Jim on his horse could
neither outflank it nor out-race it. Being too large to squeeze through the
gap into the stump, Jim rode straight at the fire – attempting to ride
through it. The horse went from under him, and Neville, watching from within
the tree stump saw his Uncle burn to death. Amid the shock and horror was the
dread of his own impending horrible death. Neville said that he slumped into
traumatized delirium consumed with dread laced with pervasive love similar to
his experience when lost as a three year old. He described being on the edge
of oblivion and again yearning for a better reality for all people. When
found, physically safe, Neville was profoundly traumatized. Ginger, though
singed, survived. Circumstance created another similarity. At age three it was the
Aboriginal women who gave nurturing care. During the time of this grass fire
there happened to be an Islander women staying with the Yeomans family as a
housekeeper-support for Neville’s mother. The woman was an Australian South
Sea Islander - Faith Bandler’s sister, Kathleen Mussing. It was in Kathleen’s
nurturing care that Neville found enfolding love. Faith Bandler was one of those
responsible for the referendum on Aboriginal voting rights. Faith had support
from Jessie Street. The Jessie Street Foundation in memory of Jessie has
supported Laceweb action in 2001 and 2002 (Laceweb-Homepage 2001). Neville attributed his healing from this second trauma in the
months following the fire, to the nurturing socio-medicine of this
housekeeper, Kathleen. In essence, this entailed love, care, nurturing and
affection as the central components of psychobiological healing. Neville re-met Kathleen Mussing when she
was old and dying and she didn’t recognize him. Neville described that
meeting as one of the saddest experiences in his life, though permeated for
him with immense love. |
