CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 64Indigenous Health, Education, and RightsReligion, Spirituality, and PsychologyCultural, Psychoanalytic, and Sociopolitical Reflections

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 38 of the 38 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Mahi a Atua: A Māori approach to mental health

Maree Kopua, Diana, Kopua, Mark A, Bracken, Patrick J·2020·Transcultural Psychiatry
DOI 10.1177/1363461519851606
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. European colonisation had a devastating effect on their communities and their way of life. While there is some evidence of a renaissance of Māori culture in recent years, like other indigenous people across the world, they continue to be massively overrepresented in their country’s figures for poor mental and physical health. In this paper, we briefly review the literature on the Movement for Global Mental Health and review the case that has been made for the use of indigenous psychologies in place of approaches based on Western psychiatry and psychology. We present two case histories where an intervention based on an indigenous Māori approach to negotiating emotional conflicts and dealing with mental health problems was used. This approach, called Mahi a Atua, was developed by two of the authors over a number of years. We conclude that indigenous approaches to mental health offer not just an adjunct to, but a real alternative to, the interventions of Western psychiatry. They provide a framework through which individuals and families can negotiate their journeys through mental health crises and difficulties. However, such approaches can also work on a socio-cultural level to promote a positive identity for indigenous communities by celebrating the power of indigenous deities, narratives, and healing practices that were marginalised and suppressed by the forces of colonisation.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/1363461519851606

Cites

38 of 38 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Citations

Cites

Show all 36 references

Research works printed but not linked: 12

  1. Baxter J., 2008, Māori Mental Health Needs Profile Summary: A Review of the Evidence
  2. Cohen B., 2014, Disability and the Global South, 1, 319
  3. Durie M., 1994, Whaiora: Māori Health Development
  4. Durie M., 1999, Health Forum of New Zealand Newsletter, 49, 2
  5. Hunter, E. (2001) The “Deep Sleep of Forgetfulness”: Reflecting on disremembering. In L. J. Kirmayer, M. E. Macdonald and G. M. Brass (Eds.), The Mental Health of Indigenous Peoples. Proceedings of the Advanced Study Institute: The Mental Health of Indigenous Peoples McGill Summer Program in Social & Cultural Psychiatry and the Aboriginal Mental Health Research Team May 29 – May 31, 2000 Montréal, Québec. Retrieved from www.mcgill.ca/tcpsych/files/tcpsych/Report10.pdf.
  6. Kirmayer, L. J, Macdonald, M. E. & Brass, G.M. (2001) Introduction. In L. J. Kirmayer, M. E. Macdonald, & G. M. Brass (Eds.), The Mental Health of Indigenous Peoples. Proceedings of the Advanced Study Institute: The Mental Health of Indigenous Peoples McGill Summer Program in Social & Cultural Psychiatry and the Aboriginal Mental Health Research Team May 29 – May 31, 2000 Montréal, Québec. Retrieved from www.mcgill.ca/tcpsych/files/tcpsych/Report10.pdf.
  7. McLeod M., 2017, The New Zealand Medical Journal, 130, 30
  8. New Zealand Ministry of Health, 2012, Suicide Facts: Deaths and Intentional Self-Harm Hospitalisations 2010
  9. New Zealand Ministry of Health, 2013, The Health of Māori Adults and Children
  10. New Zealand Ministry of Health, 2015, Office of the Director of Mental Health Annual Report 2013
  11. Oakley-Brown M. A., 2006, Te Rau Hinengaro
  12. Rangihuna D., 2018, The New Zealand Medical Journal, 131, 1471

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Maree Kopua, D., Kopua, M. A., & Bracken, P. J.
Affiliations
  • Hauora Tairāwhiti
  • Tohunga Moko Hauora Tairāwhiti
Corresponding author
Kopua, Mark A
ORCID
Bracken, Patrick J
Venue
Transcultural Psychiatry
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2019-05-24
Volume
57
Issue
2
Pages
375-383
ISSN
  • 1363-4615 (ISSN-L)
  • 1461-7471
DOI
10.1177/1363461519851606
OpenAlex
W2946727622
Cited by
64
References
36
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 4
FWCI
3.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Transcultural Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Health › Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights
  • Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Cultural, Psychoanalytic, and Sociopolitical Reflections
Keywords
Māori mental health, indigenous psychology, indigenous deities, indigenous narratives, healing practices, colonization, indigenous identity, Māori culture
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Mental Disorders, Female, Humans, Male, Mental Health, Mental Health Services, New Zealand, Qualitative Research, Young Adult, Narrative Therapy

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review