Maori Healers' Views on Wellbeing: the Importance of Mind, Body, Spirit, Family and Land

From an indigenous and holistic perspective, the current dominant biomedical model of health and illness has a limited view of people and their wellbeing. The present study aimed to explore Māori spiritual healers' views on healing and healing practices, and the implications of these for conceptualisations of holism, health and wellbeing. Six indigenous Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand took part in in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a Māori researcher from March to September 2007. Transcribed interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis techniques. We found that Māori cultural perspectives influenced views of the mind, body, spirit and healers also identified two additional aspects as significant and fundamental to a person's health, namely whānau/whakapapa [family and genealogy] and whenua [land]. We propose a model called Te Whetu [The Star], with 5 interconnected aspects; namely, mind, body spirit, family, and land. Results are discussed in terms of the contribution of Māori knowledge to our understandings of health and wellbeing, and their implications for conceptualising holism, as well as health policy and care for Māori and other indigenous populations.