#77. Rangatahi Māori, Identity, and Perfectionism - Dr. Ellie Rukuwai

Dr. Ellie Rukuwai of Victoria University of Wellington, discusses her research on perfectionism and self-injury within the Māori community, exploring how cultural perspectives shape these experiences. She emphasizes the importance of understanding perfectionism not just as a psychological construct but as a culturally bound experience that can differ significantly from Western definitions. The discussion also touches on the impact of colonization on Māori identity, the challenges of mental health diagnosis, and the necessity of qualitative research in capturing the nuances of individual experiences. Ellie shares her personal journey of reconnecting with her Māori heritage and the importance of community support in mental health.

https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/ellie.rukuwai

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and episode context
• 2:12 Ellie’s Pepeha (introduction in te reo maori)
• 2:28 Personal Journey and Cultural Reconnection
• 10:37 Complexity of identity and cultural embededness
• 18:25 Why study perfectionism and self-harm in Maori?
• 26:12 Perfectionism: Western vs Māori Perspectives
• 41:53 Generalisability of Research
• 51:31 The Limitations of the DSM
• 55:37 Self-Harm and Mental Health Stigmas
• 1:00:58 Dream Research Project
• 1:07:48 Future Research Directions and Personal Aspirations

Transcript

0:04

What is perfectionism to you? Do you think everyone around the world has the same understanding of perfectionism as you do? Dr. Ellie Rukawai is a lecturer in psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research focuses on rangatahi Māori experiences or Māori youth experiences and their understanding of perfectionism and non-suicidal self-injury, and how these may differ from Western-based definitions of these constructs. Dr. Rukawai is a mixed-message researcher researcher and a trainee clinical psychologist with a particular love for qualitative research. Her current areas of research interests include Maori psychology and wellbeing, Te Reo Maori acquisition and the cultural relevance of current clinical measures and interventions for Maori. Outside the world of mental health and psychology, she has terrorized many a netball court around Wellington, collecting medals across every social netball league the city has to offer. And back in the day, she also held a few national swim records. She is also a great dancer, having performed at my wedding earlier this year. She was previously on this podcast as a co-host, but it is a great pleasure to have her back speaking about her own research today. So welcome Dr. Elie Rukawa to the Smooth Brain Society. Thank you. Oh god, I forgot about that. He's dug up everything. It really is. Oh, God. Not the dancing. The dance that I had to learn in one night, might I add. Thank you very much. it to be to be fair, not to downgrade your achievement, but I had to also learn my dance in one night. So you're not the only one. oh Feral made me lead it. That's true. exactly. That's testament to your abilities. um no, no, no. But okay, anyway, to the actual podcast, welcome. uh How about we start with everybody and like, could you give us a little bit of an origin story into yourself and your how you came about doing what you do?[Ellie's pepeha (introduction in te reo Maori)] I am a wāhine Māori from Aotearoa, New Zealand, so an indigenous woman. I just listed off my iwi or tribes, guess is how you would describe them. They're very much based in like the north, center of the North Island and in the top of the south. Yeah, I grew up in Nelson, which is the top of the South Island and it has a large Pākehā, or white population. I was one of very few Māori at my school. And I grew up pretty disconnected, I would say, from my culture. I hate the word disconnected. It doesn't really fall in line with like, how... Māori view that connection to our culture. But yeah, basically I didn't grow up embedded in the culture at all for various reasons. I wasn't near my iwi. Dad had been whangai or adopted. So he didn't really have that connection and then also kind of just had a bit of like trauma around it. and society in itself tells you it's better not to be Māori. yeah, I kind of just rejected that side of me for a really long time and then I... Went through high school, was a swimmer for way too long. um That's probably where all of my perfectionism comes from. um And then I came to uni in Wellington and I took one Maori studies course and went, hey, that's actually kind of cool. And there started my journey of reawakening, shall we say. um my Maori side and that cultural connection. yeah, I did a BA in Psych and Crime and didn't have never left. Unfortunately, they cannot get rid of me. Unfortunately for them, fortunately for me, I have a job. um Yeah, finished my PhD last year. Also started as a lecturer. last year and then I've been finishing off my klinzike degree. I have one more year left so I'll be going into my internship next year and I'm very lucky to be going to a kaupapa Māori service. So yeah I get to practice the way that I want which is really exciting and I know pretty much all of the Clin psychs there already so that's also really exciting. One of them being Bailey Sahir. Oh, very nice. We will have her on soon as well. uh yeah, she's sitting her exam this week, so she is very stressed. But yeah, it'll be nice to have her there as well. We also live together. um She's like one of my best friends. So yeah, I'm very lucky there. um And then I kind of just fell into this job to be completely honest. um It was two months before the end of my PhD and absolutely would not recommend applying for a job when you are... two months out from submitting, but alas I did and they were advertising roles for Maori lecturers in psych and I went, why not? I'll just throw my hand in the ring, see what happens. So I decided on the day that the applications were due that I would put an application in frantically emailing people, will you be my reference? Do you think this is a good idea? Help me please. And then, yeah, they offered me the job. Much to, I think, everyone's surprise. Yeah, and so now I actually have an academic job. It's not something I ever envisioned myself doing, but yeah, I do. I love teaching and that's something I kind of learned throughout my PhD because I tutored a lot. I guess Sahu, technically my boss. was. was, yeah. And yeah, I really enjoyed the teaching side of tutoring. And then obviously I like research because why else would you do a PhD? So those two things just fit nicely together. And here I am. And I'm really hoping Pawa shows up. uh I think he's outside terrorizing some birds. Never around when they want me. You That was a great introduction, thank you. I think you said that you kind of got into kind of your kind of Maori culture when you were a little bit older. How do you find that shaped your perspective as a researcher, especially when you're studying mental health and wellbeing? Yeah, think um it's been hard um doing that. There's been a lot of times where I've been like, I just wish that I had had this connection strengthened in me from when I was younger. um I actually think that it's a real strength for me in terms of connecting with other. people, particularly other Māori who've had really similar experiences, because we know that actually a lot of Māori have had these experiences. It's something like 80%, 80, 85 % have been dislocated from their land and grown up away from it. So it is a really common experience and I think it works in a strength in that way for me in terms of both research and my clinical work. And having kind of gone through that journey myself gives me that perspective of like, it's not an easy thing to do, but it is doable. And so I think, yeah, again, that kind of helps me, particularly with clients connect on that level. um Because I think there can be this kind of... thing about um the elite Māori and it can be quite gatekeeping for those of us who haven't grown up super embedded and I don't think it's intentional um but I think it reflects like they're not necessarily being that same experience of having to reconnect or go back to something that you lost and it's actually not your fault that it was lost. It was all due to colonization. Like in my family, uh Te Riu was only, our language has only been gone for two generations because my dad's parents felt that actually it would be better for him to not know Māori and to only speak English because that's how he would succeed in life. um And that's not his fault. And it's not his fault that he didn't pass it down to us. That's purely just a result of colonization. so, yeah, I think it's just helped in terms of being able to connect with people and see kind of multiple different sides of things. I don't really think that that answered your question about research, but I'm no, no, I think that was absolutely like as just as your perspective, even as just as a personal research, however, it's basically however you wanted to answer that. I don't want to force a personal answer if you want to give one. But you said you said, did you say elite Maori there? I ask? yeah, so it's really hard to explain and I don't want to sound critical either because I'm of the opinion that every Māori person has a space in the Māori world. um But, and like this is something I've experienced myself, is that there are some people who... haven't had that experience of having to reconnect or have and have done it in such a way that it um has almost skewed their view into, well, if I can do it, then so can you, which completely takes out any nuance of how difficult it is for people, what kinds of connections they have available to them. I only found out three out of my four iwi as an adult and probably in the last two years. because my dad was adopted and we didn't know any of that. And there are people that I know who don't know their whakapapa at all because they've had parents or they've been adopted at some point in their whakapapa, in their ancestry. And I just don't think that that's And there's also, there is some kind of... thoughts for some people around, if you don't speak the language, then almost like you're beneath other people who do. um And I absolutely think that the language is so important, but it almost gives off this, well, not almost, it gives us off this um idea that there is a continuum of being Māori and that some people are more Māori than others. And to me, that's gross. and feeds into the idea of the colonizers and creating that and fighting when actually everyone's absolutely on their own journey and um that is so okay. I've been right at the other end of that journey um where I knew nothing and I didn't want to know anything and it's hard to confront that. and make the change. And so for people to tell you, you're not Māori enough, for it to come from your own people hurts more, um I think. so, yeah, I've got a real pet peeve about people who use their uh journey or their level of connection as like, I'm better than you or I'm more Māori than you because That in itself is not a Māori way of thinking. which might be controversial, but I will stand behind that to be completely honest. I don't think it's fair. I think you've justified that very, very fair. think that's, yeah, no one wants to feel that they're not enough of something. And it sounds like, what you're saying, sounds like people aren't Maori enough and maybe also people can go on their own journey at their own time. know, some people have maybe gone the full way and be like, it's super easy why you're not getting involved as much or, but everyone is on their own journey. That absolutely makes sense. Yeah, definitely. we have this like, um, we're saying, I guess that's like, if you Whakapapa, then you are. So it's basically, if you have a single drop of Māori blood, not that we do, like we don't do blood quantums or anything, but it's basically saying, if you have that ancestry, then you are Māori and you don't need to justify your like Whakapapa to anyone. And I Yeah, I just think that that is the essence of being Māori. I think that really captures it instead of being like, well, I'm more Māori than you. It's, it's very, I really like that saying because I remember you saying it when, we were studying together back then. And it was very nice because you come from when you're studying history or you're studying sort of, for example, the slave trade around, there's all these and sort of US history and sort of the idea that you being white was contingent of you not having even one sixteenth of any other sort of race mixing in it right that was it was the one sixteenth compromise or one eighth compromise it was one of those things i can't remember the number but flipping it the other way and being like if there's even a bit of you which is something you are one of us or is a very inclusive way of looking at things And that's what the like indigenous Australians will say to that theirs is like, um no matter how milky the tea, it's still tea. it's yeah, that's speaking to the same thing. That's definitely not the quote, but it's like along the lines. like it, it makes sense, I like it. Heh. Yeah, I just, I like that as well. But I know that that's not the same kind of thought process for every Indigenous culture. But it's definitely the majority for Māori and Indigenous Australians, yeah. I mean, you see the elitism in other ways as well. I cannot talk about it in the Maori experience, but I can talk about in the Indian experience and being someone who didn't necessarily grow up in India for a lot of it. There's that sort of the non-resident Indian sort of experience of that. And then there's also people who have like one Indian parent and then their experience is also completely different based on you're not Indian enough or you're not this. But so there's relatable levels to this. Yeah. of the elitism which comes. gonna say almost like, you know, especially saying like maybe we've got an Indian parent or, you a white English parent and, you know, you're not feeling kind of like one or the other sometimes, must be quite. Yeah, I think and that's like something that I really struggled with as well, right, is that I have brown skin. um I look Māori or I look at least not white m and then growing up in a majority white space is like, well wasn't white enough to fit in with the white kids but I'm also not brown enough to fit in with the Māori kids so actually where do I fit then? um And that's, mean, I had friends obviously, but you know, it's different to feeling like you belong. And I think that's something that I've really valued um being in Wellington and where it's a lot more diverse, but also having. Māori friends who've had really similar experiences to me and it's like we do just have a safe space now for us and it's like, oh I belong. I think, I mean we do know in psych that like belonging is one of the like core human needs or desires is to belong. So yeah, I think it can be really hard navigating that in between. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So I was thinking about moving a little bit more into your work within the Māori population and is it mainly in, it looks like it's perfectionism and self-injury. Can you explain why those maybe topics matter a little bit more, specifically in the cultural context you're talking about? Yeah. yeah, so I'm gonna start it with a story. Excellent, we love story time, please, please. So I was a swimmer, high performance athlete since I was nine or ten years old. And that in itself, like sport comes with a level of expectation of performance. um I think it really instilled in me, you need to be perfect because if you're not, then you're not gonna win, right? um So that's definitely where my perfectionism kind of came from and also... uh like getting good grades at school. Swimming is a really demanding sport. So I was at my peak training 10 times a week plus two gym sessions. And they're not short, you know, some of them are two hour long swimming sessions. We're training twice a day. There was times where there wasn't a day off. It was every single day. oh And I loved it, don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved it, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. I loved competing, I was good at it and everything, but it's exhausting. It's so time consuming. Yeah, and then I think on top of that, again, being in a majority white, growing up in a majority white town, I was... very hyper aware of how I was perceived. um There were times where I'd be walking around a shop with my friends who were all white and I'm the one being followed by retail workers. um Yeah, just like things like that. you notice the, that like subtle or insidious kind of racism a lot more. And I always had people saying, oh, you're not like other Māori, you're one of the good ones. And so you end up internalizing that and going, okay, well, I don't want to be Māori, that's obviously a bad thing. I need to do everything perfectly to make sure that I'm not seen as that. Yeah, and so... I was probably 14, 15, and I was just really not in good place. ah Yeah, swimming, school, mental health not great. And I started self-harming. um You know, in New Zealand, we know that up to 50 % of our young people are self-harming or have self-harmed in the last year. It's one of the highest, if not the highest rates of self-harm in the Western world. So it's a really common experience and I had a lot of friends who doing it as well. ah Yeah, so actually, my research is very personal. It's what, you know, Western researchers would say is me search. And to that I say what is wrong with me search? Absolutely nothing. I think it gives me more of like a passion to find out what's going on. It gives me more motivation. But we'll come back to that in a second. I have a lot to say about that kind of thing. Yeah, so I think for me it was I had personal experience but I also knew that other people did and then um the more that I studied, more that I realized, I'm not represented in this research at all. um It's all from America, it's all done on white, pretty much white students. And also the more that I studied, the more I kind of reconnected with my, or reawakened my Māori side. And the more I learned about, these things might, these things might not actually align uh with how Māori perceive things um or experience them. I think that there's more going on and So I was like, yo, I'm gonna find this out with the help of my lovely supervisors, um Mark Wilson and Awanui Te Huia. um But yeah, the self-injury from a Māori, I'm sorry, I just love him, he's so cute. so sorry, it's like the worst. Just people who are listening, my cat is, eh I'm at home, because it's like eight at night, and my cat is underneath my jumper on his face, and it's really not a great time, and I apologize, But I'm glad that's bringing you joy, so that's fine. That's fine, okay, that's fine. As long as you're happy, that is all that matters. You he keeps popping his little heat out. really sweet. I was wondering how long you'd be able to hold this straight face while this is happening. what? Oh, takes his moments. No, he's picked the perfect moment. Okay, and apparently this is like the best m speaker for me to bring him out on, because apparently you love him. So this is great. Apologies, sorry, please carry, please carry on. I will, will, I will let him just chill here. gosh, what was I saying? about that felt connected to, and you thought like, can actually discuss this because there's something I've been through and I'm not being represented in the right way. yeah. um And so that had kind of already been done with self injury and so PhD has to be a unique topic. um And so I was like, I'll do it for perfectionism, but I'm still interested in the self injury stuff as well. I managed to keep it in there a little bit as well. And it's definitely something that I'm really keen to keep. Both of them are things that I'm still really keen to keep looking into. But yeah, basically I decided that I want to know more about my own experience, but I also want to see how Māori actually experience these things because we know that culture affects every single behaviour to ever exist. yeah, also I'm really sorry if you can hear the wind. It's super windy here. OK, Wellington, Winderside. um You So let's talk about your research then. So you picked perfectionism, you picked self harm. Are there sort of like key differences in the way they were perceived? Because you spoke about you felt they weren't perceived, right? But now from your work, what have you found? Do you have to give like a intro into what perfectionism is in terms of that thing from a Western lens versus a Te reo Maori Lens? Yeah, I can do that. um So perfectionism is, it's not a disorder. ah It's not like in the DSM or the ICD or anything. It's a transdiagnostic risk factor. And basically what that means is that it is um a lot of the time talked about as a personality trait or um something that affects lots of different disorders. it might play into the development of disorders. So things like eating disorders are really highly related or correlated with perfectionism. And it also might maintain the disorder as well. So if you're really perfectionistic, it's going to maintain something like eating disorders, because that's a core part of eating disorders. It's also highly related to things like anxiety, oppression, OCD, etc. And there are lots of different ways of kind of thinking about perfectionism or the parts that make it up. But it's like very basic definition is that perfectionism is the Oh god my brain again is just short so can I cut that? no. So perfectionism is the tendency to strive for really high standards and goals which you may or may not be flexible about achieving and that last part is kind of the key differentiator between the more positive types of perfectionism in the more negative types in terms of outcomes. So we kind of talk about there being adaptive and maladaptive types of perfectionism, adaptive obviously being that more like related to positive outcomes. I do have an issue with that wording. um I'm not a big fan of it. I don't think that there is really an adaptive type of perfectionism and that is shown in the research as well. So Adaptive perfectionism, while it is related to some positive outcomes, there are actually instances where it's related to more negative outcomes for people. And the only difference between the adaptive and the maladaptive types is whether or not oh someone is flexible about achieving those goals. So adaptive is that you are flexible and maladaptive is that you are not flexible. Yeah, so that's kind of why I have a bit of an issue with the... phrasing as adaptive, whereas the maladaptive type of perfectionism is just basically all bad. Research is very consistent and yeah this leads to negative outcomes and that's when you're not flexible about achieving your goals so it's really rigid. So say you were to get really sick before a big exam and you didn't get an A plus that you then that's what you were striving for. someone who's maladaptive would just go, oh, well, that's just not good enough and then be really hard on themselves. Whereas someone who's adaptive or higher in the adaptive perfectionism side of it would be more likely to be like, it's okay, I'm really sick. Or I was really sick right before. That's not necessarily a reflection on me and my ability. So that's the main difference between the two, but. Yeah, again, not the biggest fan. um And I do think that they both still lead to negative outcomes. um Yeah, and then there are kind of two schools of thought about perfectionism. So one has like six factors. That is the Frost multidimensional perfectionism scale is what we would call it. And that's made up of concern about mistakes, about making mistakes, doubt about actions, so doubting that what you're doing is actually correct, harsh parental criticism, so that's receiving it from your parents, high parental expectations, and that's regardless of what your actual ability is, high personal standards of course, and organization, which is a random one to put in there but... it's there. And then the other kind of way of thinking about perfectionism is uh three factors. So socially prescribed perfectionism, that's where you feel like others in society, usually friends and family is what we would be talking about, you feel like they have really high expectations of you. uh Self-oriented perfectionism, that's where you have high standards for yourself. That's your kind of very standard perfectionism. And then other oriented is the last one and that's where you have really high standards for other people. Yeah, so those are your kind of main ways of thinking about perfectionism and Western research. Yeah, and what I kind of saw or looked at or thought about before actually doing my research was a lot of these things just don't really align with what, um with a Māori worldview. So for example, like the harsh parental criticism and high parental expectations, that in itself just being parental is not um aligned with how Māori view family. Fano is often translated as the extended family, but it actually goes a lot broader. So it can incorporate people who you're not even related to at all. So my thinking there was actually if you don't have that nuclear family and you have a much broader range of people who are there to support you and kind of act in their parental role, that might work as a buffer for you. when you do get harsh criticism. But then it also might work the other way, right? It might mean that you're getting a lot of criticism from lots of different people or you're having to navigate all of these competing expectations that lots of people who are really important to you have. So that in itself, I was like, I don't know about that. And then also like things like concern over making mistakes and doubt about actions. Well, actually, for a lot of Maori, we do have to be concerned about making mistakes or doubting what we're doing because of the way that we're perceived in society. So we're very conscious of, or we can be very conscious of those kinds of things. And yeah, so basically what I found was through my, did mixed methods. So in my quantitative study, we did a confirmatory factor analysis of the perfectionism scales and it loaded into four different factors and three of them were those self-oriented, other-oriented and socially prescribed um but then there was a fourth one and when I looked at that it actually looked like it was talking more about social desirability and so that's why we ended up naming it and essentially what it talks to is that fact that those items we're measuring, like we need to, I need to be really concerned about how other people are perceiving me in society. How can I make sure that I am coming across as desirable? I'm not feeding into these stereotypes. Those were kind of the kinds of things that were loading onto that factor. And these were all only Māori participants as well. So obviously, I mean, I don't know if that would be the same for Pākehā or other cultures as well, but um I think for Māori it definitely makes sense. um So yeah, we have that kind of quantitative evidence there and then in my qualitative studies, um pretty much all of my participants talked about that. They talked about the pressure to behave in a certain way, to be conscious of how what they're doing might be perceived by others because when a Māori person does something bad, it is then translated to all Māori and it feeds into those stereotypes. so, lot of my participants were talking about not wanting to uphold those stereotypes and to break them. But then obviously that's leading into these like really hyper aware behaviors and that like need to, I have to be perfect so that I don't do that. um Yeah so that was one of the biggest kind of findings. That avoiding being like racially profiled um kind of thing because of the worry of how it will affect not just yourself, but also other Māori. And I think that that's something that actually ended up being really nice was that quite a few of my participants talked about how Māori have this... uh I guess idea or perspective that the like how how you perform reflects on your whanau which can be a really good thing right so if you do really well and then that's not just a good reflection on you it's also a good reflection on your whanau, your iwi, your friends, everyone else around you. It's like it enhances the mana of everyone, not just yourself. um Mana being something that's really hard to describe in English. um It's really often just like translated as authority, but I don't think that that captures it very well at all. But it's this like inherent essence that every Māori person has within them. From understanding it feels somewhere as a mix between not just authority but also pride and internal essence. Yeah, it gives you standing, but it's also very much like a privilege to have a lot of mana and it's a big responsibility on top of that as well. yeah, um so it can basically doing well can enhance the mana of everyone around you. But also it works both ways, right? So if you don't do well if you do something wrong then that can also affect the mana of those around you by diminishing it. um Yeah, and so kind of that's the Māori perspective, but then kind of what we see is that um it leans more towards that negative side for Māori post-colonisation in terms of one of those tools of colonisation is um to make it seem like the group that's being colonised deserves it or that they um they've actually benefited from it. That colonization has been helpful for them. And so one way that that is done is through the media being like, Māori person does this bad thing. And then that reflects onto all Māori. And that's where we get those stereotypes of Māori are inherently criminal. Māori are state dependents. We're dumb. We can't do anything for ourselves. And So yeah, that's kind of where you see that generalization and that negative way. It's almost like that weaponization of our own culture against us, um which again is a textbook strategy of colonization. yeah, I think that was definitely something that came through in terms of feeling like people needed to fight back against those stereotypes and prove that actually they're not right, but... It just doesn't seem to, in today's society, the positive things don't generalise in the same way that those negative things do, which is unfortunate. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I read it, there's an article in the New York Times, think it was a few years ago now, and it was like, had a really great catch title, it's almost like the, like you just spoke about like just a certain aspect, know, like loud is being troublesome and, you know, being loud is, know, but it's not, you know, it's never people who are white who are troublesome. It's every single other person. It was a big thing about New York as being a real issue. It sounds like, yeah, it's just, it's different kind of culture. So everything you're doing here is kind of, you know, possibly affecting, you know, other people as well. you know, kind of like linking there. yeah, no, definitely. And like, even just if we get into like, men and women, um allowed man's fine, but allowed woman is annoying, right? um And then you add race into that, you add sexuality into that, and all of a sudden, it's just, yeah, minority on top of minority on top of minority. um But yeah, I think in terms of like generalisation, um What I find really interesting is that a lot of people are like, oh well qualitative is not generalizable. I 100 % disagree. One, I don't think that every single piece of research needs to be generalizable. I think that's ridiculous. Like our context here in Aotearoa is so unique. Why? why should it be generalizable? But then I would also argue that actually my research is generalizable to other indigenous cultures in terms of being like, this is what we've kind of found works for us. And this might be helpful for you if that's something that you're interested in. I'm not saying it's going to translate one to one, but I don't think this is honestly my controversial take about. about research and especially psychology. I don't think anything is a one-to-one generalizable, like it's just not. Nothing is one-to-one. Humans are so diverse, so I just don't get why mine needs to be. Yeah, that was a rant, sorry. No, wait! was them. Sorry to say here. Just go ahead, ahead, ahead. Finish your thought. And I was just gonna say, like, no, it's, you know, that's why everything's so much more personalized as we go on and on, because I think it's absolutely the very spirit, especially when it comes to like emotions, mental wellbeing, all of these different things that make a person. It's not, we're not talking about a disease here. We're talking about a person with emotions, complex emotions that is very, very specific person. So yeah, completely makes sense. oh I was just going to mention the point which you make is very good that it does not need to, there is no need for it to be generalizable. um But also that certain things are very, can very easily or very importantly be carried over. Like what you said can be, can relate to many indigenous populations, but also to many minority populations. Like you said, like the whole idea of if they do something good, they're British, but if they do something bad, they're children of immigrants or they're black or they're whatever. So the same sort of concepts can are seen or are like, yeah, can translate to that other layer of potentially perfectionism, not necessarily just having those three points could also have a fourth point. might not look exactly how it looks in the Maori, indigenous context, but like there's something missing clearly which you need to pay attention to. yeah, I think that's definitely my perspective of it can, even though people tell me it's not generalizable, I just, I disagree. I so disagree. And I don't think we should be translating anything one-to-one for any culture. uh bet you remember uh Daniel Rojas who came on and about to say his name that was honestly like that was he gave a really important point where he's doing something he is doing sorry to hear I No, you do it, you do it, you're saying, you're 60 % of the way there, so finish it off. to be great. I got very excited there. m He's doing some really great research. So he did a lot of his, he's uh from Chile. He did his postdoc in Chicago, I believe his PhD as well. And so what he's doing is a lot of the research that he did there with like, kind of how we kind of view maybe adverse events and kind of images and kind of like difficult. uh like social things, but he's doing it in Chile and he's finding kind of like different effects and there's a slightly different results. And it's like, well, we can't just generalize all these things to American research. And this is very like kind of things are very based in culture and social norms. But I know we're talking here about, know, very specific kind of, you know, mental health and emotion, which is of course connecting culture as well. But even actual, I mean, I do research in Parkinson's disease and so much of the research, know it's neurodegenerative disease and it has a specific path, but it can affect people in so many different ways and different cultures, but we just look at it and it's, I'll stop after this, but I spoke to a woman very interestingly and she is from South Africa and she does some really interesting research. name's Angela Bennett, I believe, really research in how different ethnicities um find the hospital system in the UK. and why they might not go. she says people who are black will be like, the medical care in England is not for black bodies, is the exact quote that she said. em She said people maybe who are more from Asia or maybe I think more kind of China, she said, it's if you go to the doctors, you're letting the bad in was a really big, there was all these different kinds of cultural phenomena that we just don't know. And it's like, you know, like, okay, so. Anyway, that was my like it was but all these kind of different it's it's it's it's fascinating and makes such an important point I think that we'll see more and more and more people are aware of it. It's good. Sorry, this is not the guest here but links all these things together. Yeah, no, definitely. And like, even we know that there's um a gene for or multiple genes for intergenerational trauma that gets get passed down. Like that that is a culturally bound experience for people who have had that intergenerational trauma that's like that's biology you cannot tell me that these things are like solely objective yeah can you tell that i'm like one of the only qualitative researchers in my school m You keep battling that battle. uh But you miss so many, you miss lot of nuances when it's like it's... which I just think when you're dealing with psychology is crazy to me. It's yeah, it's just absolutely wild. And I think also like the fact that I have that clinical kind of experience and side to me as well. I every single client that I get is so different. And I say that like, I've had hundreds of clients, I haven't I've had like four, but They're still all so different. So if I came in there being like, beep boop, fill out this measure, okay, tick tick tick, done. That would one, be a horrible experience for them and two, isn't going to give me any of the nuance of their lives and what they experience and so I just think that reducing every single person to a number is actually not all good. In psychology, I think it absolutely has its place. I'm a mixed methods researcher, quant 100 % has its place. But I really hate how quant researchers will just shit on qualitative as if it doesn't matter. um I I would argue it actually matters more. yeah. Yeah, a lot of people, it's harder to analyse and it's, I think that's a big thing. just so people may not know, but when we say qualitative, we mean more, it's not got, you know, like, yeah, as you said, like, quantitative is like a, it's numbered, you know, you can measure it. Qualitative is like conversations that you have to kind of trawl through, can be quite difficult. yeah, it's incredibly important. And and now with all the data, quantitative stuff gets even more powerful or like leaned upon. Right. Because and it is important, but it shows trends. It does not show it. It's it's the thing my mom always says, I don't want my kid to be a statistic or I don't want to be a statistic, which is like, I guess this was this was not to go into one episode after we spoke about vaccines. into the whole idea of like when you do a clinical trial and there's it's 99.9 successful over like hundreds of millions of people that 0.01 % where it wasn't successful there's for multiple reasons because of differences in humans which have not been accounted for or which need to be accounted for in rollouts of medicines or whatever and where where you need the quantitative in the sense of trying to figure out what gene it is and all that. But it may be this qualitative experience is involved in it, which is why these things aren't working. um And this is for medicine, which I'm talking about, not even psychology, it's for something which is a bit more like robust, which we know. um which is a hard science and psychology which we don't even know how to distinguish our disorders properly. Like the DSM sucks, you know? Like, oh yeah. Rain it in. sucks and I remember you made a face about self-harm being potentially added into the DSM when you said it. Do you want to talk about that? Like why you made that face? So if you look at the DSM, um and this has come entirely from my clinical training, um which I'm very grateful for, and at the time I was like, what do you mean the DSM sucks? The DSM is what we use to diagnose people. How can it suck? um No, it sucks. If you look at it and you look at the descriptions of disorders, there is so much overlap, um which... tells us that actually our theoretical understanding of these disorders is terrible. We don't get them. There's a ridiculous number of ways to present with depression or PTSD like in the hundreds. Some disorders that in the thousands, it's, you know, so you could have so many different people say, I've got a PTSD diagnosis or I have a depression diagnosis, but actually the way that it's presenting for them is different. which I think comes back to that nuance is really important and personal experience is really important because I mean, I'm not saying that those people don't have that disorder. I'm saying our understanding of it is really bad. Um, which means that we are probably missing a lot of people in terms of diagnosing as well. and if you don't have that really critical lens and the kind of the background of when you're formulating or deciding what is kind of going on for that person to disentangle their experiences, they could end up with a number of, oh he's here! you See ya! So many more stuff we've been told. Bless them. He doesn't care. Hang on, I'm gonna get him. I'm gonna make him care. This is vital. I like how the podcast has stopped to get cats on video and this is very important. title that, that, you know, we're having like a meeting of the cats here. Oh my God. is! Look he's got his little name tag on. Ohhhh. Pawa. Wow his full government name is Mr. Pawa Fritter. And oh he's angry at me. um That is like a New Zealand delicacy I guess. um But I don't even like seafood. he... Oh god. He really wants to eat. But let me just show you his fur. Oh, angry boy has... beautiful, beautiful markets, god is. funny. But yeah, his markings are very similar to a Pawa shell. Hence the name. But yes, sorry, back to what I was saying. really important for cats and cats in there, vital. I was hoping he'd make an appearance so... bless. Yeah basically the DSM sucks. It's not very good at disentangling disorders from one another so that means that you could have someone who's presenting with... um So I'm trying to think of like a case that I've had this year. um It looked like ADHD. um but then it also could have been anxiety. And those are two very different disorders, right? And so you have to like really tease them apart. the DSM essentially it doesn't do what it should do for a diagnostic manual. It's more descriptive in nature, which has its place and... is important in terms of accessing, like diagnosis is important in terms of accessing help, which is why in New Zealand, like we will still diagnose, but there is more of like a tendency not to diagnose unless it's necessary. Whereas in America, which is where the DSM is from, it... Basically you need a diagnosis to access everything, to access any kind of support. And so they kind of just diagnose willy-nilly. And then, I mean, there's also money in it and everything as well. So that adds another layer. But in terms of self-harm being in the DSM, it's been a proposed disorder. um which they have now changed to a specifier, which essentially means that it's not a disorder, but it's going to turn up under lots of different disorders as like, this person has depression, specifier with self harm. um And basically the kind of general consensus around this, so I went to conference earlier in the year that is specifically for self harm. And The general consensus there was actually that that was more harmful and that having it as a disorder at all is more harmful because it adds to that stigma of self harm and particularly in places like the States where that's going on your record that you have self harmed that can be used against you in terms of insurance. uh I know that in New Zealand, I'm not sure if it's still the case, but at some points, if you had on your medical records that you had experienced mental difficulties, uh it could affect your ability to get a job. having something like self harm as a specifier, I think is unnecessary. It adds to the stigma of people who do self harm because The other thing is that we know that most people will self harm for a bit when they're younger and then you kind of get a peak in adolescence of like between 14 to 16 when rates are really high, but then it drops off. And then there is a second peak in early adulthood, which is really under studied. So we don't know a lot about that, but it is typically a like, something that happens for a very short period of time, um rather than being a chronic lifelong experience. And so if someone who was only ever going to do it for a short period of time, then ends up with that on their medical records forever, that can like affect their life for forever, for their entire life, and that's not fair. So yeah, there was a lot of discussion about, well, actually what would it... Like what benefit would it have um to have that as a specifier, to have it as a disorder, that kind of thing. researchers tends to go actually the complete opposite way of, no, it shouldn't be there. um But yeah, that's why I made a funny face about it at the start. That's a very good sort of reasoning for it. feel I've always sort of struggled with labels for these things um for mental disorders because of the overlap. I see the positives in the sense that having a diagnosis or a label can help you understand what's going on. So I think there's that. But then I feel there's certain things which there's no clear benefit. And this is probably one like what what some of the symptoms are necessary because as you said like self-harm is seen across multiple disorders perfectionism is seen across multiple disorders so having that being labeled can potentially not well was likely not going to do much help for like the potential negative sides and I think we'll actually end up doing more harm in the long run. Yeah. Yeah, especially it's on there. Yeah. Yeah. That's not going to be, know, as you said, like it sounds like there's like, there's a peak and then it kind of slopes off. It's, it. It's very valid, valid point. You then, you made a couple of points saying like this is future Ellie's problem. quite a few times. So let's say, I want to pretend that there's, uh, you've just been given a. two billion dollar pound grant and the ethics board will go pounds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do that. And the ethics board have gone on holiday for the week and have just like a blanket approval on everything. What would be your dream study or what would you think be like the study that you could do that you'd like to do? Yeah, well, I love that you said the ethics board has gone on holiday. Not because I want to do anything unethical, but because I always have to argue with them about things like I want to give koha or that's, I guess gift is probably what it translates to. um to my participants and they're always like, that's too much. I'm like, what do you mean? That's too much. These people are sharing their stories with me. So that's why I'm glad about the ethics board being on holiday, not because I want to do anything unethical. um But so I did have a think about this and I think that actually what I would want to do is very much like an applied kind of thing. um And basically my idea is that I would uh contact every single iwi that exists in New Zealand and be like, I want to help you um support the people who are not connected uh back into connecting with your iwi and come up with some way to do that. have no, absolutely no clue. And I think the thing is it would be really different for every. every iwi, some have high disconnection rates, again I hate that word, um whereas others are still quite culturally connected um for the majority. yeah, think that would be my kind of way of support, like my idea would be supporting people back into connecting and that might look like just like physically supporting them. So I'm going to drive you there. I'm going to go with you or I'm going to have someone to go with you. Obviously I can't go with every single person um as much as I wish I could. But it also might look like putting on wananga. So like meeting big group meetings of let's go back. This is what. you kind of need to do to prepare and this is the Ti-Kunga there and um but also providing that mental health support because I think it is really underrated how hard it is um and that's from personal experience from the experiences of my friends who've gone back like Going back to your marae is scary because you don't know how they're going to react to you. You don't know what it's going to be like at all. There were times where I was in tears. The anxiety is super, super high. You're like, what if they don't like me? Yeah, like that real rejection sensitivity. What if I'm rejected? And so I think there needs to be more support around that. And then I felt like a lot of the money would also go into like putting on, excuse me, putting on feasts, cause that's one thing about Māori we love to eat. um and love to put on a big spread for after like a pawfuddy or something. So that's probably where most of my £2 billion would go. uh I going to ask what percent of the two billion would just go towards CHIA? Zoomed too much. you important. Yeah, and like so important for making connections and all of that as well. So definitely not money wasted in my opinion, but yeah, I feel like there's probably a different type of answer to what you usually get. But yeah, more applied. I think that's a great answer. You wanted to connect a little, make a little almost like a maybe a rail network of all the different areas with a counselor on each of these trains so everyone feels supported there and back. And then a big feast at the end. I think two will be sold to get the two million. I mean, just in a general sense, implementation research is a big thing, right? Because if there's one thing just doing interviews and sort of doing the qualitative and quantitative research and saying, okay, we should do this, but does it actually work? Can you actually apply it? It's one thing just interviewing people and second thing actually facilitating them sort of, yeah, going through that journey and whether it works and then you know what you need for future generations if they need help as well. Yeah, no, I 100 % agree. think that's another one of my pet peeves is actually that psychology seems to be really bad for it. We just do the research, but then don't actually do anything with it. I'm like, why? What's the point of doing it then? Like we do this for a reason. Yeah. Yeah, sure. For the million dollar grants that are very few and far between in New Zealand. Yes. yep. So what is next m research wise or it's a personal journey as well that you're particularly excited about? so I guess, I mean, what's imminently next is me doing my internship for clinical, which I am so excited for it to be over. And for me to never have to study again. It has been a long road. I think we're at 11 years now. yeah. So I'm very excited about that. But I'm also Really excited to really get stuck into the research side of things again. my friend Kealagh and I, who Kealagh's been on the podcast before, we have been lucky enough to be awarded a Marsden Fast Start grant, which is basically funding us for three years to do some research on, yeah, very exciting. Mostly Kealagh I feel like I was just kind of... there, she brought me along and I was like, thanks. oh But yeah, we've been funded to do some research in schools on self injury and emotion regulation, beliefs about emotions and how those are kind of passed down from um parents to or from whanau, very broad definition of whanau um to children and then how that impacts on self-injury. um Yeah, which I'm really excited about. We've been in and out of schools this year, kind of talking about surveys and Kealagh is a stats whiz, so she will be doing all of that. And then I get to do the fun creative stuff, um not next year, but the year after in terms of deciding how we want to like disseminate it and things like that. Because again, um what's the point in doing research if you're not going to turn it into an applied thing, in my humble opinion. um I'm also really lucky to be a part of a research project that is being funded by the Health Research Council um with my supervisor, or ex-supervisor I guess she is now, and is now colleague Awanui Te Huia. So we're looking at... um kind of validating how important Whare Hau Ora, almost like medical clinics, specifically at Marae um are for Maori and what kind of benefits they have there. So I'm actually meant to be writing the lit review for that right now. um Yeah. And then longer term. uh hopefully get some big grants myself. I really, really wanna do something to do with that like, reconnection or reclamation of your Māori identity stuff. I am gonna put in a grant to, just like a small one to talk to older Māori adults who self-injure still. Cause yeah, like I was saying, that is a like... older adults who self-injure is really understudied. then so older Māori adults is obviously even more understudied. And I would also really, really like to co-design something from my PhD and turn that into something usable with my original participants if they are willing and keen to participate. um But yeah, someone give me money to do that. Please, I'm so poor. Victoria University is so poor. Please give me money. Yeah, and I would absolutely love to write kids books one day. That is one of my random offshoots that I would like to do. So as you can tell, I'm going to be really busy. Yeah. enough hours in the day, or not enough budget in the world either. of exciting stuff and yeah, kids book as well. We need another podcast on the kids books you're going to be writing. you've got five years. That's the goal. Come back every five years and update us on various things. Yeah. What goals has Ellie achieved? running segment just like uh really gonna play into that perfectionism, isn't it? Full circle! Ah, on that note, Ali, thank you very much for coming on. Okay, anytime. Very interesting. Thank you. Thank you Moose and Power for guest appearances as well. The cats. very important. Yeah, yeah, they like to, you know, we're, we're, we're cataphiles here. oh And on that note, thank you everybody for listening to all the tangents and all the incredible work Ellie is doing. And until next time, take care.