Entering the Void: Exploring the Relationship Between the Experience of Colonisation and the Experience of Self for Indigenous Peoples of Aotearoa, and the Implications for Psychotherapeutic Clinical P

Abstract

<jats:p>This paper explores the relationship between the experience of colonisation and the experience of self for Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa. As we celebrate the formation of Waka Oranga in 2007, and its work in the years since, the publication of this paper is particularly fitting, drawing as it does on research originally undertaken at the time of the roopu’s formation. It is based on the lead author’s 2008 Master of Psychotherapy dissertation research in which he undertook a modified systematic literature review located within a kaupapa Māori research framework, in order to explore the experience of self for Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa and its relationship to colonisation. The paper examines the process of racialisation: The construction and resulting interiorisation of Indigenous peoples as Other’. The paper contends that this process has the effect of disrupting indigenous ontologies creating a divided and alienated experience of self for Indigenous peoples. Within Aotearoa, the phenomenon of whakamā and mate Māori are hypothesised as the indigenous experience of this alienated and divided self. The paper suggests that arguably all psychological distress for Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa arise to some degree fromthese experiences. Implications for psychotherapy are considered. Psychotherapy and psychotherapists are challenged to re-evaluate both the underlying positivist conceptualisations of self, and ongoing processes of colonisation, in order that they may be more fully equipped to effectively work alongside indigenous communities in Aotearoa.</jats:p>

Therapist and Coloniser

“…The therapy room is a site of intersecting cultural politics -especially the culture of therapy itself. This is founded on the enclosed clinical dyad, which in turn supports the Western ideal of the individual as independent, singular, and separate (Woodard, 2008). Māori clients may however be seeking a much wider collective identity with land and people, among other values.…”

“…But there are possible pitfalls in this latter process. Woodard's (2008) vignette of Tāwhiri raised the importance of authenticity. If our Māori client is searching for cultural authenticity, how can a Pākehā therapist help if they are culturally unsure, if they are not themselves authentic?…”

“…Such tendencies may mirror the persistent cognitive difficulty white subjects have in recognising their own dominance (McIntosh, 2002;Naughton & Tudor, 2006). Similarly, it may also reflect a struggle to create concrete and objective ideas about oneself in the face of an unconsciously objectified cultural other (Woodard, 2008). The resulting space of white vagueness and assumed power -arguably an almost infantile state, from an intercultural point of view -must in some way perpetuate forms of inauthenticity or lack of mature self-identity in Pākehā.…”

“…Therapist and Coloniser: Pākehā Approaches to Māori Historical Trauma In this article I review literature that discusses how Māori clients suffering from historical trauma might be treated by non-Maori therapists. Following Woodard (2008) I define this client group broadly and non-exclusively. I tend to assume that in a group dispossessed of their lands and cultural integrity by colonisation, any mental illness will have some foundation in this traumatic history.…”

Towards a bicultural psychotherapy: Decolonising psychotherapy in hospice care

“…While Shabad () and Baider et al () did not focus on the impact that intergenerational trauma has on the relationship Māori have with hospice and cancer services, Pihama et al () and Durie () showed that similar phenomena occur in a more generalised perspective amongst Māori through parent–infant attachment. Woodard () added to the korero by exploring the impact the experience of colonisation has had on the identity of Māori. He suggested that it potentially divides and fragments the sense of mana ake (the uniquely ecologically integrated, interconnected sense of self) in Māori, transforming the Māori sense of self into an isolated and objectified “Other”.…”