About Rosemary Wanganeen
Non-academic background
Rosemary's model has evolved from a non-academic background. She has presented her unique and innovative Seven Phases model at national and international forums. She is a published author in academic and non-academic books and Journals and has been awarded the title of Adjunct Research Fellow with theUniversity of South Australia – School of Psychology in 2004.
For more information CV available CV- ROSEMARY WANGANEEN AMENDED 101109.pdf
Setting up
She founded the Sacred Site Within Healing Centre in 1993 in Adelaide and her commitment to the Healing Centre enable her to take it to new heights; she went on to become the founding Director of theAustralian Institute for Loss & Grief P/L in 2005.
Unresolved childhood loss and grief experiences
Rosemary’s passion to develop the Seven Phases comes from personally experiencing all forms of childhood abuses before and during Stolen Generation practices. Rosemary spent 5 years (1987-1992) healing not just her suppressed unresolved grief from her family tragedies under the Assimilation policy and Stolen Generations practices but she also realized she was ‘harbouring’ the accumulation of her ancestral suppressed unresolved grief. Rosemary now commonly refers to it as inter-generational suppressedunresolved grief that contributed to compounding and complicating her contemporary suppressed unresolved grief.
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
Similarly, she combined her childhood experiences with her work with the Committee to Defend Aboriginal Rights in 1987 and this Committee ‘forced’ the Australian government to call for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1987-1991). She recalls one of her most significant contributions to the Royal Commission was ask ing ‘how many people were removed from their families?’ and 43 of the 92 had experienced removal. Rosemary believes this could be a major reason why Aboriginal deaths in custody and major social and health problems have increased way into the 21st century because the foundations to 'healing' contemporary major social and health problems have never seen loss and grief as the foundation.
Being a research officer in both organisations it was just a matter of time before she realized there was no culturally appropriate loss and grief counselling model, so she set about using her loss and grief healing processes as an informal 'case study' to design the Seven Phases.
An adaptation of the Seven Phases
PRESENT:
(1) Contemporary major grief reactions
PAST:
(2) Childhood Losses & Suppressed Unresolved Grief (SUG).
(3) Ancestral Losses & SUG: Aboriginal Australian & Western European history.
(4) Tradition cultural grieving proceses: socially based – Aboriginal & European.
(5) Tradition culture grieving processes: spiritually based – Aboriginal & European.
FUTURE:
(6) Recreating contemporary grieving practices/activities: socially based – Aboriginal & European.
(7) Recreating contemporary grieving practices/activities: spiritually based – Aboriginal & European.