Guest: Cathy Kezelman, MD (Blue Knot Foundation)

Dr. Cathy Kezelman AM is a medical practitioner, mental health consumer advocate, President of Blue Knot Foundation National Centre of Excellence for Complex Trauma. She is a current member of NSW Child Safety Standing Committee for Survivor and Faith Groups. She is past director of the Mental Health Coordinating Council (MHCC), past member of the Mental Health Community Advisory Council (NSW) foundation member of the national Trauma Informed Care and Practice Advisory working Group, member of Independent Advisory Council on Redress. 

Cathy worked in medical practice for 20 years, mostly as a GP. Under her stewardship Blue Knot Foundation has grown from a peer support organisation to a national centre of excellence combining a prominent consumer voice with that of researchers, academics and clinicians advocating for socio-political trauma-informed change and informed responsiveness to complex trauma. She is a prominent voice in the media and at conferences, as well as author of a memoir chronicling her journey of recovery from child sexual abuse: Innocence Revisited - a tale in parts. She is co-author of multiple seminal Blue Knot Foundation documents including 2019 Practice Guidelines for Clinical Treatment of Complex Trauma. 

Blue Knot Foundation is Australia’s National Centre of Excellence for Complex Trauma. It empowers recovery and builds resilience for the more than five million (1 in 4) adult Australians with a lived experience of complex trauma. This includes those experiencing repeated ongoing interpersonal trauma and abuse, often from childhood, as an adult, or both as well as their families and communities.

Formed in 1995, Blue Knot Foundation is at the forefront of pioneering trauma-informed policy, practice, training and research. It provides direct services to survivors: specialist trauma phone counselling and educational workshops for survivors and their family members, partners and loved ones as well as an extensive professional training program for workers, professionals and organisations from diverse sectors supported by supervision and consultancy services. It also has extensive resources including fact sheets, videos, publications and website information at www.blueknot.org.au. 

It has launched new 2019 updated Practice Guidelines for Clinical Treatment of Complex Trauma. Co-authored by Dr Cathy Kezelman AM, President and Pam Stavropoulos PhD, Head of Research these clinical guidelines update the 2012 internationally acclaimed and extensively endorsed Practice Guidelines for Treatment of Complex Trauma and Trauma Informed Care and Service Delivery. Evolving research and clinical insights, as well as the continuing challenges of treating people with a lived experience of `complex’ trauma, mean that the original 2012 Blue Knot guidelines, still a valuable resource for students or clinicians new to this work, have required updating.

 The 2019 guidelines have also been extensively endorsed by leading academics, clinicians and researchers in the complex trauma and dissociation field prior to their release, including by the peak international body – International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation (ISSTD). The new guidelines provide an integrative guide for diverse practitioners working with complex trauma and dissociative clients.

In addition a companion guide to the 2019 Guidelines – combined Complementary Guidelines which provide an overview of the differences between working with complex trauma clients and standard counselling approaches as well as a guide to therapist competencies for working with complex trauma and dissociation have also been released.

 Hard copies and free downloads of each publication are available from Blue Knot’s Practice Guidelines portal. We have endorsed the guidelines and encourage you to explore them!