Source
https://mentalhealth.org.nz/explore-mental-health-wellbeing/wellbeing-health-models/te-whare-tapa-wha/ — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Context: thesis · No NI feeds (shallow ingest)
Summary
Te Whare Tapa Whā, developed by Sir Mason Durie in 1984, models health and wellbeing as a wharenui with four walls: spiritual, mental and emotional, physical, and family and social wellbeing, standing on the whenua as a foundation. In the needs-frameworks cluster it is the Aotearoa relational counterpoint to Maslow (LIT_124): wellbeing is held collectively and intergenerationally rather than as an individual ascent, which reinforces the kaupapa Māori grounding of the research. This page captures the Mental Health Foundation’s institutional description, ingested because the Durie 1985 journal primary is Closed Access. It sits subordinate to the settled frameworks Bustamin (LIT_001) and the food-energy-water nexus.
Key thesis insights
- Four dimensions on a whenua foundation. As the Mental Health Foundation states it: “The model describes health and wellbeing as a wharenui/meeting house with four walls. These walls represent taha wairua/spiritual wellbeing, taha hinengaro/mental and emotional wellbeing, taha tinana/physical wellbeing and taha whānau/family and social wellbeing. Our connection with the whenua/land forms the foundation. When all these things are in balance, we thrive. When one or more of these is out of balance our wellbeing is impacted.” Wellbeing here is balance across dimensions, not a ladder of ascending needs. URL_035
- A collective, relational account of wellbeing. Taha whānau is framed through belonging and shared life: “Whānau is about extended relationships – not just immediate relatives… You have a unique place and a role to fulfil within your whānau and your whānau contributes to your wellbeing and identity.” The whenua foundation ties the person to “tūpuna/ancestors and all the generations that will come after you.” This intergenerational, collective framing is the counterpoint the thesis draws against individualist needs models, and it aligns wellbeing with a community rather than a single household. URL_035
Retrieval provenance
- Upstream source: Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, “Te Whare Tapa Whā” (mentalhealth.org.nz, Wellbeing health models). Page footer dated 2026; model attributed to Sir Mason Durie, 1984.
- Prepared by: a retrieval pass via WebFetch on 2026-07-26; the full page HTML is stored as the raw at source_path (HTTP 200, 161,797 bytes).
- Verification: the four-dimensions passage and the taha whānau and whenua passages are quoted verbatim from the captured page. This is an authoritative institutional secondary description, graded data_quality medium; it faithfully states the model but is not the Durie primary.
Notes
- Role. The Māori relational counterpoint in the needs-frameworks cluster. Cite as the obtainable description of Te Whare Tapa Whā with Durie (1985) named as the originating primary reference.
- Durie 1985 is blocked. The journal article (Soc. Sci. Med. 20(5):483-486, DOI 10.1016/0277-9536(85)90363-6) is Closed Access on Elsevier with no open repository copy (OpenAIRE confirms Closed Access). The distinctive wharenui four-walls metaphor is documented in the institutional descriptions and is often dated to Durie’s 1984 hui presentation, with the 1985 article the citable publication. No page-located quotation should be attributed to Durie himself from this secondary description.
- Related pages. Te Whare Tapa Whā is already referenced in OT_049 and OT_051.
Connections
Links to
Referenced by
Sources (1): LIT_124