Mr Dennis McDermott BEc, BA Hons (Psych), MA (Writing)

Title Senior Lecturer, Indigenous Health
School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Faculty of Medicine

Institution University of New South Wales
Discipline Indigenous Health, psychology, poetry

Expertise Indigenous social, spiritual and emotional well being – including diagnosis and assessment issues, depression, alcohol and other drug use, violence, effects of removal, PTSD, trans-generational trauma, AD/HD
Men’s and boys’ health
The nexus of culture and context in service provision
Pedagogical approaches to cultural competence and cultural security
‘Other’-ness, racism, discrimination and ‘whiteness’ studies
Indigenous literature – particularly poetry and criticism

Research National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia (Aboriginal Maternal and Infant Health)

Alcohol Education Research Foundation (Healthy Lifestyles Project)

Relevant Publications Macdonald JJ, McDermott D and Di Campli C (2001) ‘Making It OK To Be Male: The Role of a Positive Approach to the Health and Well-being of Boys and Men’, paper delivered at the 8th National Conference of Suicide Prevention Australia, Darling Harbour, May, 2001 www.menshealth.uws.edu.au (last accessed July, 2001).

Macdonald JJ, McDermott D, Woods M, Brown A and Sliwka G (2000) ‘A Salutogenic Approach To Men’s Health: Challenging The Stereotypes’, paper delivered at the 12th National Health Promotion Conference, Melbourne, Oct.-Nov.
<www.menshealth.uws.edu.au/Documents/Salutogenesis&Men.html> (last accessed July, 2001).

Crawford D Brown A and McDermott D (2001) The NSW Men’s Health Information and Resource Centre, NSW Public Health Bulletin 12(12) North Sydney, NSW Health, Dec.

McDermott D (2002) ‘Bare Feet, Broken Glass: Aboriginal Poetry and the Leaving of Trauma’ in Departures: How Australia Reinvents Itself Pons X (Ed) Melbourne University Press.

McDermott D (2003) ‘How Do You Get Cured of Spiritual Sickness?’: discarding a ‘blacks behaving badly’ model of Indigenous Australian violence in favour of shared responsibility and a ‘men’s business’ approach’ International Health Exchange.

McDermott D (2003) ‘In Your Face, Out Your Ear?: politics, aesthetics and the ‘power’ of Aboriginal poetry, Blue Dog, Five Islands Press, University of Wollongong, Winter.

McDermott D (2003) Dorothy’s Skin (poetry collection), Five Islands Press, University of Wollongong, August.

McDermott D (2004) ‘Kinky One’ and ‘That Snake Wind’, in Australian section of a double-issue review of international English language poetry, Poetry International, Santa Fe, New Mexico, January.

McDermott D (forthcoming, August, 2004) Ghassan’s Gran and My Mother: strategic whiteness among Aboriginal Australian and immigrant ‘others’. Balayi: Culture, Law and Colonialism, Vol. 6, UTS, Sydney

McDermott D (2004) ‘Abo-Proof Fence: Can poetry and prose ground a ‘virtual’ Australian apartheid.’ Anthology of the National Poetry Festival, Five Islands Press, University of Wollongong (forthcoming September, 2004)