Category Aotearoa

The Politics of Borrowed Ideas: How New Zealand Imported Pain Science & Inherited Its Politics

hands cupping candle

Ask a GP or a physiotherapist here what the biopsychosocial model is, and they will likely describe Engel's humane corrective to reductive biomedicine. Almost none will describe its second life as an occupational health risk assessment tool built to serve compensation systems, or its ongoing role in an American political fight over disability entitlement. The model arrived here stripped of its history and was received as though it had no history at all.

Te Whare Tapa Whā and pain: a whole-health lens

maori model of health

New Zealand has had a comprehensive whole-person model of health for over forty years. It was developed here, it is enshrined in health policy, and it is invoked regularly in government documents. It is also almost entirely absent from how persistent pain is assessed, treated, and compensated in this country. That absence is not accidental. And understanding what is missing when it disappears tells us something important about what genuine pain care would look like.