Scholarship award after trying therapy to suit Maori women
A HUNCH Maori women could benefit from a nonWestern therapy prompted a Dunedin psychologist to embark on an unusual study.
Dunedin Hospital psychologist Miriama KetuMcKenzie has been awarded a New Zealand Psychological Society scholarship for her research into the effects of mindfulness on the stress hormone cortisol.
The eight women in the study had had a stressful childhood with adverse experiences.
In a couple of weeks, they will start a mindfulness programme with Dunedin practitioner Kovido Maddick.
Their cortisol levels would be checked before, during, and after the eightweek programme.
It includes meditation and yoga, in addition to group activities, as well as individual practice.
Mrs KetuMcKenzie said she believed mindfulness was more in keeping with the Maori world view than the likes of cognitive behavioural therapy.
‘‘Mindfulness may be more attractive to Maori,’’ Mrs KetuMcKenzie said.
Maori lived in a more communal way with emphasis on relationships, she said.
Mrs KetuMcKenzie, who moved to Dunedin from Tauranga a year ago, said recruiting enough women for the study was not easy. She believed Maori were likely to be undercounted as a demographic in the South.