A Traumatic Birth: PTSD in Convicts and the Australian Psyche

Previous histories have not explored the incidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Australian convict history and the effect on the Australian psyche.

In “A Traumatic Birth”, Stephen Lucas investigates the psychic injury inflicted on female convicts in Van Diemen’s Land, the effect on their offspring and the development of resilience in the population.

Through careful research over many years, Lucas details the daily life of a peasant in a Quaker village in Ireland prior to her transportation.

So too the lives of her descendants, pioneers in the Australian Outback. A Traumatic Birth contains a first-hand account of life on a Selection, describing what it was like to live in a slab-hut, experience isolation and drought.

Stephen Lucas has consulted with recognised experts such as historian Dr Alison Alexander, well known for her work on Tasmanian convict history and psychiatrist Professor Jayashri Kulkarni of Monash University. Both support his conclusions.

“A Traumatic Birth” beautifully traverses a vast Australian history. The great Australian resilience is followed from convict times to the Eureka Stockade and to the shores of Gallipoli.