Search
May 04, 2022
A clinical psychologist is alarmed at the prospect of foreign mental health concepts being introduced into kura kaupapa.
Kiri Waititi says the Ministry of Education has enlisted Māori mental health professionals to develop a Māori model of wellbeing.
She says that the model already exists with the Te Aho Matua framework already used by kura, which encompasses principles like whanaungatanga and manaakitanga.
“We really need to be careful because psychology in Aotearoa is really over-rated in terms of its benefits to our people because it’s based entirely on whatever comes out of America and the UK. The most important component of psychology is the human element so introducing models and philosophies that are foreign to the indigenous humans in this country is not just wrong but it’s dangerous and we are seeing that time and time again with the negative statistics for Māori in mental health,” Ms Waititi says.
She says only 15 per cent of successful outcomes in therapy come from theory-based treatment, while 75 per cent are attributed to what can be understood as whanaungatanga.
Enter your email address to receive regular updates from Waatea News
Radio Waatea on Social Media
© 2021 UMA Broadcasting Ltd. All rights reserved.
Produced by iDigital