Psychology

One of the things that makes a Registered Psychologist different to other consultants and people using assessment tools, is that we have a code of ethics we are required to adhere to.

The ethics code has strict standards on ensuring the validity of the approaches we take and that we ensure the methodologies have sound scientific merit.  Our ethics cover the following:

·                    Principle 1 – Respect for the Dignity of Persons and Peoples

·                    Principle 2 – Responsible Caring

·                    Principle 3 – Integrity in Relationships

·                    Principle 4 – Social Justice and Responsibility to Society

The following quotes from the New Zealand Psychological Society code of ethics gives a taste of the ethics we have to strictly abide by which in turn benefits and safeguards our clients:

1 – Respect

·                    “In their professional relationships psychologists are respectful of those with whom they interact.”

·                    “Psychologists seek to prevent or correct practices that are unjustly discriminatory.”

·                    “Psychologists recognise and promote persons’ and people’ right to privacy.”

·                    “Psychologists recognise that obtaining informed consent from those with whom they are working is a fundamental expression of respect for the dignity of persons and peoples.”

2 – Responsible Caring

·                    “Psychologists who conduct psychological assessments select appropriate procedures and instruments and are able to justify their use and interpretation. 

·                    This involves, but is not limited to, selection of procedures and instruments with established scientific status, currency and cultural appropriateness and which the psychologist is trained to administer.

·                    Any reservations concerning the validity or reliability of an assessment procedure, arising from its administration, norms, or domain-reference, should be made explicit in any report”  

·                    “In reporting assessment findings and recommendations to clients, research participants and/or professionals, psychologists provide appropriate explanations of findings, interpretations and limitations.  They endeavour to see these are not misused.”

·                    “Uninterpreted data from assessments is not normally releases to persons who are not specifically trained in the use and interpretation of the instruments concerned.”

·                    “When a client’s needs lie outside of a psychologist’s expertise, the psychologist refers the client to others appropriate services.”

·                    “Psychologists do not delegate out activities to persons not competent to carry them out”. 

·                    “Psychologists attain and maintain adequate levels of knowledge and skills in order to practise in a particular area.”

·                    “Psychologists recognise the limits of their own competence and provide only those services for which they are competent, based on their education, training, supervised experience, or appropriate professional experience”.

·                    “Psychologists utilise and rely on scientifically and professionally derived knowledge, and are able to justify their professional decisions and activities in light of current psychological knowledge and standards of practice.”

3 – Integrity in Relationships

·                    “Psychologists recognise that integrity implies honesty in relationships.  Honesty requires psychologists to be accurate, complete and comprehensive in all aspects of their work.”

·                    “Psychologists accurately represent their own and others’ qualifications, education, experience, competence, and affiliations, in all spoken, written, or printed communications.”

·                    “Psychologists are accurate, complete and clear n reporting assessments, evaluations and research findings and do so in a manner that encourages responsible discussion.”

4 – Social Justice and Responsibility to Society

·                    “Psychologists engage in regular monitoring, assessment, and reporting of their ethical practices and safeguards.”

·                    “Psychologists protect the physical security and integrity of assessment instruments and ensure that they are not used inappropriately.”.

Dr Kerry Gibson

Kerry is a member of the Institute of Clinical Psychology and the Institute of Counselling Psychology. She has many years of experience in  academic teaching as well as hands-on experience as a clinical supervisor and a practitioner. In addition to her clinical focus , Kerry has strong interests in the fields of community psychology, organisational psychology and health psychology and contributes to these areas through her academic writing and work with community-based organisations. Kerry is a senior lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Auckland.

Sociology

  Sociology is the study of humans as social beings – how we organise and participate in groups, and how these groups change over time.

Class in New Zealand is a product of both Māori and Western social structures. New Zealand, a first world country, was traditionally supposed to be a 'classless society' but this claim is problematic in a number of ways, and has been clearly untrue since at least the 1980s as it has become easier to distinguish between the wealthy and the underclass.

Māori hierarchies

   Present-day Māori society, though far less hierarchical than traditionally, remains stratified by European standards. A disproportionate number of Māori MPs have come from chiefly families, for example, and kaumātua have special status. However, a number of lowly-born Māori have achieved positions of considerable mana within their communities by virtue of their achievements or learning.

About classless society

   Until about the 1980s it was claimed that New Zealand was a 'classless society'. Historian Keith Sinclair wrote in 1969 that although New Zealand was not a classless society, "it must be more nearly classless... than any advanced society in the world". From the nineteenth century many visitors also made this claim, for example British socialists Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and politician Austin Mitchell. The evidence for this was the relatively small range of wealth (that is, the wealthiest did not earn hugely more than the poorest earners), lack of deference to authority figures, high levels of class mobility, a high standard of working class living compared to Britain, progressive labour laws which protected workers and encouraged unionism, and a welfare state which was developed in New Zealand before most other countries. Also, during the post-WWII years, New Zealand became an increasingly prosperous society, with the majority of New Zealanders coming to attain an affluent lifestyle. As noted by the historian William Ball Sutch in 1966.

Inequality

   New Zealand's claims to be a classless society were dealt a fatal blow in the 1980s and 1990s by the economic reforms of the fourth Labour government and its successor, the fourth National government. The reforms (sometimes called Rogernomics) made by these governments severely weakened the power of unions, removed a lot of protection from workers, cut social welfare benefits and made state housing less affordable. After these reforms, the gap between rich and poor New Zealanders was increased dramatically, with the incomes of the richest 10% of New Zealanders advancing while the other 90% stayed largely static. In addition the number of New Zealanders living in poverty is much higher than in the 1970s. In an article entitled "Countries with the Biggest Gaps Between Rich and Poor", BusinessWeek ranked New Zealand at 6th in the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgPyYGbhV7Q 

Political

   The politics of New Zealand take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic monarchy. The basic system is closely patterned on that of the Westminster System, although a number of significant modifications have been made. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who is represented by the Governor-General and the head of government is the Prime Minister who chairs the Cabinet drawn from an elected Parliament.

   New Zealand has no formal codified constitution; the constitutional framework consists of a mixture of various documents (including certain acts of the United Kingdom and New Zealand Parliaments), the Treaty of Waitangi and constitutional conventions. The Constitution Act in 1852 established the system of government and these were later consolidated in 1986. Constitutional rights are protected under common law and are strengthened by the Bill of Rights Act 1990 and Human Rights Act 1993, although these are not entrenched and can be overturned by Parliament with a simple majority. The Constitution Act describes the three branches of Government in New Zealand: The Executive (the Sovereign and Cabinet), the legislature (Parliament) and the judiciary (Courts).

Main office holders

Office	Name	Party	Since
Queen	Elizabeth II		6 February 1952
Govemor General	Jerry Mateparae		31 August 2011
Prime Minister	John Key	National Party	19 November 2008

Judiciary

New Zealand has four levels of courts:

• The Supreme Court of New Zealand
• The Court of Appeal
• The High Court
• The District Courts (including the Youth Courts)

New Zealand Political Facts

• New Zealand was the first country in the world to allow women the right to vote, in 1893.
• Today, every male and female over the age of 18 has the right to vote in New Zealand.
• During the 1930s and '40s, the Labour Party implemented Social Security schemes, the 40 hour working week and minimum wage requirements.
• After World War II the National Party won power. Apart from two brief periods of Labour   governance (1957-60 and 1972 – 75), National   remained in power until the 1980s.
• The centre-right National Party currently holds power in New Zealand, led by John Key.
• The main opposition party is the centre-left Labour Party led by Phil Goff.
• Smaller parties include the left-wing Green Party, the right-wing New Zealand First, ACT and Maori parties.
• At the local government level, New Zealand has 12 regional councils, which are divided into either City or District Councils. There are 16 City Councils and 57 District Councils in New Zealand.

Anthropology

Raymond William Firth (was born in Tamaki, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand in 1901) was a New Zealand ethnologist, especially well-known for his study of Maori culture. He was a pioneer of economic anthropology. His parents were Wesley and Marie Firth. He was educated at Auckland Grammar School, and then at Auckland University College, where he graduated in economics in 1921. He took his MA there in 1922, and a diploma in social science in 1923. In 1924 he began his doctoral research at the London School of Economics.

His doctoral thesis was published in 1929 as Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Māori. Firth was a long serving Professor of Anthropology at London School of Economics, and is considered to have singlehandedly created a form of British economic anthropology.

Work:

   Firth spent almost his whole life studying the Maori culture. He wanted to discover the meaning behind those external manifestations. He investigated the values of the people he studied, and the complex relationships within their society, He was particularly interested in the role of social institutions how family, kinship, religious, and economic organizations.

In his book from 1929, Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Maori, Firth analyzed the Maori system of land ownership and the principles of their economy.

   He was the first person in gathered and compiled material for created the first dictionary of the Tikopian language, which was quite similar to Maori. He then analyzed their family system, described in his book We, The Tikopia (1936); economic system, in Primitive Polynesian Economy (1939); values and beliefs, in The Work of the Gods in Tikopia (1940), and social structure, in Social Change in Tikopia (1959) as well as History and Traditions of Tikopia (1961).

   Firth wrote extensively on the traditional religious thoughts and practices of Tikopians. When he first visited Tikopia, the 1300 inhabitants were still mostly non-Christian, although some attempts of conversion have been made earlier by Christian missionaries. Firth recorded many religious practices, and grew rather fond of them. He later wrote on the effect churches had on local people when Christian missionaries arrived. He became particularly critical of proselytizing, seeing it as a form of pressure to give up one's own identity.

On his death, Sir Hugh Kawharu, then president of the Polynesian Society, composed on their behalf a Maori lament (poroporoaki) for Sir Raymond Firth

  

You have left us now, Sir Raymond

Your body has been pierced by the spear of death

And so farewell. Farewell,

Scholar renowned in halls of learning throughout the world

"Navigator of the Pacific"

"Black hawk" of Tamaki.

Perhaps in the end you were unable to complete all

the research plans that you had once imposed upon yourself

But no matter! The truly magnificent legacy you have left

will be an enduring testimony to your stature.

Moreover, your spirit is still alive among us,

We, who have become separated from you in New Zealand,

in Tikopia and elsewhere.

Be at rest, father. Rest, forever,

in peace, and in the care of the Almighty.

   His early work was precisely the primitive economy of the Maori (1927). All his work is traversed by the study of primitive economies, especially that of Tikopia of the South Pacific. His conclusion is that in the simplest economies never lack the choice between alternative ends, just like what happens in complex societies, although there may be differences in scale.

John Derek Freeman ( was born in Wellington, New Zealand 15 August 1916 and died in Canberra, Australia 6 July 2001 ) was a New Zealand anthropologist best known for his criticism of Margaret Mead's work in Samoan society, as described in her 1928 ethnography Coming of Age in Samoa. His effort "ignited controversy of a scale, visibility, and ferocity never before seen in anthropology. Freeman initially became interested in Boasian cultural anthropology.

   His 1953 doctoral dissertation described the relations between Iban agriculture and kinship practices. In 1961 he suffered a nervous breakdown, this experience profoundly altered his view of anthropology and from then on Freeman argued strongly for a new approach to anthropology which integrated insights from evolutionary theory and psychoanalysis, and he published works on the concepts of aggression and choice. In 1983 he published his book Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth in which he argued that Mead's data and conclusions were wrong and that Samoan youths suffered from the same problems as Western adolescents. He later published "The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead" in which he argued that Mead's misunderstandings of Samoan culture were due to her having been hoaxed by two of her female Samoan informants, who had merely joked about sexual escapades that they did not in fact have. Freeman's critique of Mead sparked intense debate and controversy in the discipline of anthropology.

   The so-called Mead-Freeman controversy spanned three decades, and he published his last rebuttal of a critique of his arguments only weeks before his death in 2001.

Archaeology

   A group of archaeologists, led by Al Fastier, all members of society for the preservation of the historical heritage of the New Zealand Antarctic, they discover boxes of Scottish malt whiskey from a special harvest in a century buried under the ice in Antarctica.

Whiskey bottles, brand McKinlay & Co, were discovered earlier this year at the ice camp Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton had to leave in 1909 after failing in his attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.

The explorer Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922) could not drink eleven bottles of malt whiskey that had been on his way to the South Pole in 1907.

The had to let abandoned in 1909 in a log cabin built hidden under a box in Antarctica, they were wrapped in paper and straw to protect them.

The failure of the expedition ship Nimrod.

   On August 7, 1907 left for the Antarctic expedition in the ship Nimrod, captained by explorer Ernest Henry Shackleton, the goal was to reach the South Pole, but never succeeded.

In 1909, when they were only 160 kilometer away, Schakleton decided to turn around, it was too risky with his decision saved the lives of his men, but lost the honor of being the first to reach the South Pole, and the feat would get in 1911 the Norwegian Roald Admundsen.

Shackleton tried twice more, in 1914 and 1921, but again failed, died in 1922 with only 556 pounds in their pockets, according to one version.

fossil Zealander

   An international group of archaeologists led by New Zealander Trevor Worthy, University of Adelaide, Alan Tennyson, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, and Mike Archer, University of New South Wales.

Find small fossilized bones, jaw and hip, belonged to a fantastic land animal, the size of a mouse, unlike any other known mammal, and were unearthed in the paleontological site of St. Bathans, in the region Otago, in the South Island of new Zealand.

   The fact that at least one land mammal ever lived there, at least 16 million years ago, has refuted the theory that the rich avian fauna of New Zealand evolved that way in the absence of competition from land mammals.

This also suggests that New Zealand was not completely submerged, as some scientists have thought, when sea level peaked some 25 to 30 million years.

The Moa caves of Mount Owen

   Researchers exploring the vast network of underground caves of the inhospitable mountainous regions of New Zealand, under Mount Owen when they found a sort of punch that seemed to have belonged to a monstrous being.

In itself, this is the leg of an ancient creature known as Moa (dinornítido) extinct more than 500 years ago but, you see, is almost in perfect condition.

   The disturbing finding, formed by a series of strange bones still attached by a layer of skin, proved to be the leg of a flightless bird known as “dinornítido” or moa, over 3,000 years old. Although extinction occurred about five centuries ago.