Mana Informed Response Based Practice

Mana-informed response-based practice. For health practitioners, educators, teachers, lawyers, police, social service agents working in the field of violence.

To understand why people perpetrate violence, the question often asked is “Why are people violent?” Solutions are then oriented to that question, which focuses on the impacts and effects of harm. Pilot programmes are implemented only to fail, then those underserved-yet-over-policed communities who need help the most are blamed for non-compliance. The question we should be asking is “Under what conditions do people commit violence - and get away with it?”

Victims of violence routinely receive negative social responses from others. Often this takes the form of denial, blame, misdiagnosis and negative labelling. The victim’s resistance to the violence is ignored and their responses are interpreted instead as “effects” or “impacts” and symptoms of disorders and mental deficits. When viewed in context, however, we find that human beings are responding social agents, not out-of-control perpetrators or passive victims as contemporary literature suggests. Victims’ responses – even responses of intense despair - become understandable as appropriate responses to violence, or forms of resistance. This 2 day workshop covers 4 prominent aspects of violence recovery that critiques all mainstream approaches, transforms professional practice and elevates therapeutic encounters with Māori whānau.

1) A whakapapa of violence and healing: Exploring the psycho-socio-historical context of violence – in all its forms, is fundamental to understand the solutions that we, as a nation need, to heal. “Titiro whakamuri kōkiri whakamua” - looking to the future we must first look back and learn from our mistakes. From the mauri to the macro, the ongoing effects of colonial violence reverberate within Māori communities, across sectors, through time and beyond generations. Yet here within lies the key to recovery – all we need to do, is be brave, take a breath and lean in.

2) A mana-informed-response-based approach: Is Indigenous centred, systemic and rooted in social justice. Positive social responses that uphold mana and dignity are crucial for victim wellbeing following adverse experiences, reducing long-term harm and ongoing distress. As much as positive social responses can heal, negative social responses can incite further suffering.

3) Coming to terms with violence and resistance: How we language violence matters. In professional, academic, and public discourse language is frequently used in a manner that (a) conceals violence,; (b) obscures and mitigates perpetrators' responsibility; (c)conceals victims' resistance and (d) blames or pathologizes victims. This critical analysis also discusses the language of effects and impacts vs the language of responses and resistance, inviting a different conversation by nouning less and verbing more.

4) The problem with psychology… is psychology: Following on from language used in violence is the language used in psychology - benign Eurocentric theories decontextualize human suffering and recast responses to violence as symptoms of a mental illness, thus shifting the problem of violence which occurs in the social world into the brain/mind of the victim. For example, ‘trauma’ occurs as a result of an injury sustained in a car accident or an earthquake. People respond overtly positively to those hurt in these situations and offer tautoko or send messages of aroha. But folk who have been hurt through deliberate acts of violence, endure an attack on their mana in a way that an earthquake - for all its terror and destruction, does not inflict. Here, victims are responding to violence, not trauma; they have been violated, not traumatised; and they need to attribute meaning of their responses to the actions of violence,rather than being pathologized and medicated.

Donny Riki, of Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Paoa iwi, is a registered psychotherapist currently living in the Horowhenua district on the unceded whenua of Muaūpoko and Ngāti Raukawa Ki Te Tonga. She identifies with cis-gendered-straight white-partner-privilege and carries the insights of ancient spiritual intelligence which informs her clinical practice. She has long standing relationships with whenua and the natural world which spans across generations and shares this relevance to colonial violence recovery and re-Indigenisation for her people.

Vivian Roberts is 5th generation Pākehā and identifies as Tangata Tiriti with cisgendered-straight-white-doctor-privilege. He is a GP of 35 years with a few years of psychiatry under his belt and a deep passion for providing accessible, affordable, equitable healthcare for Māori and Pasifika whānau. He (unapologetically) speaks truth to power and white privilege and hopes for a future where Māori can freely assert their own Tino Rangatiratanga and Mana Motuhake. Between them, Donny and Viv have 5 tamariki, 2 mokopuna and a big Mastiff puppy called Jimi