Chapter 1 — Beginnings: Stories of the Just Therapy team

Let’s begin with the stories of how the Just Therapy Team came into being. The following video begins with a mihi (welcome) and Māori waiata (song) led by Monica Mercury. Taimalieutu Kiwi Tamasese and Charles Waldegrave then share some of the twists, turns, challenges and adventures from the early days of Just Therapy.

Photo credit: Kasia Waldegrave

Stories, tears, laughter, prayer and song with Warihi (Wally) Campbell

In this video, Warihi (Wally) Campbell responds to questions from Taimalieutu Kiwi Tamasese & Monica Mercury about the history of how he came to be at the Family Centre and how he and the Māori team began to develop unique forms of family therapy. This video also includes a moving intergenerational exchange between Warihi Campbell as Māori elder and Monica Mercury who is the current Family Centre Māori worker.

How Warihi Campbell & Flora Tuhaka came to be Māori workers at the Family Centre is also described in this short paper:

The development of Just Therapy

The overall principles and practices of Just Therapy were first introduced to the wider world in this key paper by Charles Waldegrave, titled simply ‘Just Therapy’. It begins with this overarching hope:

Therapy can be a vehicle for addressing some of the injustices that occur in a society. It could be argued that in choosing not to address these issues in therapy, therapists may be inadvertently replicating, maintaining, and even furthering, existing injustices. A ‘Just Therapy’ is one that takes into account the gender, cultural, social and economic context of the persons seeking help. It is our view that therapists have a responsibility to find appropriate ways of addressing these issues, and developing approaches that are centrally concerned with the often forgotten issues of fairness and equity. Such therapy reflects themes of liberation that lead to self-determining outcomes of resolution and hope. (p. 4.)

This image was designed by Rosalyn Coventry-Nokise (Rozzy)

Chapter 1 references

Campbell, W. & Tuhaka, F. (2003). In the beginning. In C. Waldegrave, T. K. Tamasese, F. Tuhaka & W. Campbell (Eds.), Just Therapy – a journey: A collection of papers from the Just Therapy Team, New Zealand (pp. 171-173). Dulwich Centre Publications.

Waldegrave, C. (2003). Just Therapy. In C. Waldegrave, T. K. Tamasese, F. Tuhaka & W. Campbell (Eds.), Just Therapy – a journey: A collection of papers from the Just Therapy Team, New Zealand (pp. 3-63). Dulwich Centre Publications.

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