Dr Averil Cook is an innovative thinker and practitioner. Trained as a clinical psychologist and systemic family therapist Averil has been in leadership in psychology training programs and academia, NSW health services and hospitals, and now as Director of Bodhi & Psychology a clinical service that works towards decolonising therapy and clinician practices through therapy, training, supervision and consultation. Across her career Averil has been passionate about social justice and has woven this into her work supervising and training psychologists, in her work with mental health organisations and in research. Her current work includes research collaborations examining climate change on the mental health of diverse communities with NSW health, the Bureau of Meterology and the Ingham Institute, and consulting to the Human Rights Commission to support intersectional and embodied change through policy, politics and social- justice. Averil brings these concepts to her work supervising mental health teams and therapists wishing to engage on pathway of decolonising themselves and their therapeutic work with clients.
“In my work, access to research is critical – we’re scientists, it’s constantly evolving,” Cook says. “But most psychologists don’t have the chance to become adjuncts or access journals.
Before Latin mass was abandoned in the late 1960s, the average church-goer got by picking up snippets of phrases and the meanings of gestures.
To Dr Averil Cook, that’s what scientific research is like in the 21st century. The public relies on information to be synthesised for us, trickled down until it is devoid of its origin.
A researcher at work in a cell culture suite in the CSIRO National Vaccine and Therapeutics Laboratory in Melbourne
Australia being ‘left behind’ as federal research and development funding sinks to 30-year low
Read more
Cook, a clinical psychologist, is lucky. She can access the full breadth of scientific research due to being an adjunct professor at UNSW.
But without the backing of academic institutions and prestigious organisations, professionals – including doctors, frontline clinicians and politicians – are in the dark, unless they can fork out thousands on expensive journal subscriptions.
- The Guardian