Acknowledgment of Country

A few years ago, I attended a weeklong program on narrative therapy at the Dulwich Centre, in Adelaide, where senior teacher Carolyn Markey told a story, explaining the origins of a Welcome to Country.  Visitors needed permission to travel to or through another Country.  A visitor would sit outside the boundaries of the Country and light a fire, a means of informing the Traditional Owners and Custodians that they were seeking permission to enter their Country.  The Traditional Owners would then enquire regarding the visitor’s reasons for travel and decide whether they would grant permission for the visitor to enter. 

I try to imagine this initial interaction.  For the visitor, a feeling of fear, of vulnerability and exposure to the unknown, approaching the Traditional Owner with integrity and humility, mingled with hope for protection and safety.  For the Traditional Owner, a guardedness and need to protect and defend Country, yet possibly, an openness and a willingness to share, to welcome, and to provide safe passage to the visitor.  The experience of sitting by the fire, while initially tentative, could also have been an opportunity to build connection, to thoughtfully discuss the purpose of travel, to establish the importance of trust, safety, and respect, to hold and be held in a moment of encounter and reflection with another. 

I see the experience of psychotherapy and counselling in much the same way as the visitor and the Traditional Owner might have sat together by the fire.  Effective psychotherapy and counselling occur when there is strength, connection, and integrity in the relationship between the counsellor and the client.  The early connection can be tentative, guarded, or filled with vulnerability, but over time, the counsellor and client can develop a relationship based on trust, safety, and respect, engaging in moments of encounter and reflection with each other.

I would like to suggest that it is the counsellor who kindles a fire outside the client’s land.  As a counsellor, I approach you, the Traditional Owner of your stories, your lived experiences, with respect, integrity, and humility.  You decide whether my intention, my compassion, my presence, is pure of heart, mind, and purpose.  You determine whether I, as a visitor, am welcome to journey alongside you, in your land. 

“Effective psychotherapy and counselling occur when there is strength, connection, and integrity in the relationship between the counsellor and the client.”

As a counsellor, I believe that it is my responsibility to attune myself to your needs, to nourish you and assist you so that you can form healthier relationships, increase your motivation, improve your self-esteem, discover greater confidence, and achieve a sense of inner peace or other personal goals.  Along the way, while you remain the Traditional Owner of your stories, I hope to become a trusted confidant or ally on life’s path.  We continue to sit together by the fire, warming ourselves, taking heart, sharing with one another, in a relationship dedicated to helping you discover healing, find resilience, and feel more empowered. 

And so, I gently light a fire outside the boundaries of your land, and I acknowledge each of you who embraces the opportunity for our work together.  I approach you with integrity and humility, and I pay my respects to your stories and lived experiences.  I look forward to gaining your trust, and to journeying with you, from where you are, to where you want to be. 

I acknowledge the Gadigal clan of the Eora nation as the traditional owners of the land upon which I live and work.  I pay my respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging - and I commit myself to encountering the stories of all who traverse this land gently, with integrity and humility.