Featherstone 
Good non-fiction shifts perceptions and actions – have you read Jilya yet?
I’ve been catching up on my reading pile and felt the need to race this book back to the library ASAP so others in the reserve queue can get their hands on it pronto – it’s such an important and inspirational book.
Jilya: How one indigenous woman from the remote Pilbara transformed psychology is written by Dr Tracy Westermanand published by University of Queensland Press (UQP).
There is so much love in this book, so much wisdom, so much urgency. The book is a tonic to ignorance and indifference.
The blurb on the back of the book partly reads:
In this ground-breaking memoir, Tracy draws on client stories of trauma, heartbreak, hope and connection from her years of practice, offering a no-holds-barred reflection on how monocultural, one-size-fits-all approach to psychology is failing Aboriginal people and how she’s healing those wounds…above all it is a story of one woman’s love for her people.
Sections including ‘Longing for Country as grief’, ‘Treating trauma: The man who couldn’t love’ and ‘The punishment should fit the crime, but what is the crime?’, brought tears to my eyes, but also hope.
A good non-fiction book ignites further change, that’s because it’s the author’s thinking (and doing!) behind the book that has already done the heavy lifting – the observation, the actions, the living.
Jilya by Dr Tracy Westerman is one of those books: insightfully, sensitively and generously sharing information that builds understanding, compassion and action.