Retired Cobden teacher Merv Edmunds is leading a program to work with 10 indigenous men

Psychotherapist Merv Edmunds is helping to lead a program which would work with 10 Indigenous men in Katherine who have been in prison or are on bail for family violence offences.

It's a long way from his work at Cobden Technical School and Mercy Regional College, but at its heart the goal remains the same.

"I've always worked with the kids who didn't want to be at school and I've believed for a long time that the problem was essentially an emotional one and not an intellectual one," Mr Edmunds said.

"I had a particular interest in helping them feel good in what they were doing."

Mr Edmunds trained in the UK where he studied emotions and how they affect people. He said he moved into private practice and has since developed a program which will be facilitated by an Indigenous healer.

Mr Edmunds said the organisation which had contracted him, Building Indigenous Capability, recognised the work at its core was focused on the men themselves.

"It's right back to what every person is," he said.

"It's looking to tackle the domestic violence at its core which is the men themselves.

"If you're going to use a model that goes back to core givens, you establish something like all behaviour is needs driven.

"We're organisms that interact with our own environment to get our needs met. It's deeper than food and shelter - we need our emotional needs to be met.

"These men have never had anything like the need for meaning and significance and control met in any useful way. So the target is at a very deep emotional level and getting the men to feel some sense of who they are, what the world is like and where they fit in it.

"This has the greatest chance of success because it's actually targeting the problem where it originates and that's the emotional brain."

Mr Edmunds said the program is described as a culturally enriched therapeutic encounter which uses therapeutic storytelling.

IN OTHER NEWS

"This is an emotional problem and until we target that in the only language that the emotional brain understands, which is metaphor, we won't really be able to make an impact," he said.

"The model we're using doesn't go backwards.

"So what happened in the past as a therapist I can't change any of it and I'm not really very concerned with analysis.

"I'm only concerned with this point onwards and what is likely to make a difference.

"It's not an examination of where they've stuffed up, they know that well and truly. It is a clean slate from this point onwards and it's the only way to build a model of who they are. They have to be free of who they think they are.

"Something has to be done because at the moment the focus is on building more shelters for women in need and protocols and intervention. It's avoiding the core of the problem and that is men who have lost their way. We are directly attempting to address that."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content:

Have you signed up to The Standard's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in the south-west.