Dr Michelle Levy is a visionary community psychologist, artist, and advocate whose career is dedicated to advancing Māori well-being. With expertise spanning Te Tiriti activation, mental health, and creative expression, Michelle’s work reflects her deep commitment to transformative change and cultural integrity.
Michelle trained as a community psychologist in the 1990s, grounding her practice in kaupapa Māori principles. Her career has encompassed roles in central government, academia, and community-led initiatives, where she actively integrates Te Tiriti o Waitangi into systems and practices to challenge inequities.
Michelle’s two-year tenure in Vanuatu significantly deepened her understanding of colonisation’s pervasive impact across the Pacific. This experience continues to inform her advocacy approach and dedication to empowering Indigenous communities.
Michelle is a Mataora trained in the Mahi a Atua kaupapa, Michelle collaborates with Te Whare Wānanga o Te Kurahuna to expand the literature on Mahi a Atua as a liberatory praxis. This transformative approach emphasises healing as a cornerstone of addressing institutional racism and fostering equity for Māori in Aotearoa.
Michelle is a co-claimant alongside Dr. Catherine Love, Lisa Cherrington, and Dr. Keri Lawson-Te Aho on the Wai 2725 Psychology in Aotearoa claim. This landmark Waitangi Tribunal claim challenges the professionalisation of well-being and the Crown’s failure to adopt transformative, culturally anchored solutions for Māori mental health. The claim seeks to ensure Kaupapa Māori pathways to wellbeing do not have as their starting point the dominant Western worldview and its systems of psychology.
Living in Whāingaroa (Raglan), Michelle is an active member of the Toitū Whāingaroa team. This initiative works to activate community thinking and action, guided by the understanding that Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Ao Māori provide a robust foundation for well-being for all.
As a writer and artist, Michelle believes creativity is a vital tool for transformative action. Her work explores themes of identity, healing, and liberation, using art to inspire collective action and deeper understanding of Māori perspectives.
Dr Michelle Levy’s work exemplifies the potential of culturally grounded approaches to address systemic inequities and promote Māori sovereignty. Through her advocacy, academic contributions, and creative practice, she empowers communities to reclaim their narratives and shape a future grounded in mātauranga Māori and equity. Her leadership inspires transformative action, ensuring a thriving, equitable Aotearoa for future generations.
Have you heard?
We’ve told you about kawanatanga, rangatiratanga, Treaties, interfaces, and not pricking your fingers on kina.
We’ve told you about listening to culture, long journeys, transformations and aspirations.
We’ve told you about the house of the Master, about barriers, and about how to fix them.
We’ve told you about fourth worlds, cultural justice, ethics, and cultural competency.
We’ve told you about colonising, and then about decolonising.
We’ve told you about new nets and fishing and flourishing and growing.
We’ve told you about relationships, biculturalism and all the other ‘isms’.
We’ve told you about resistance, and detonating critical mass explosions.
We’ve told you about babies, healing, resilience, love, hope and soul wounds.
We’ve told you about wairua, hinengaro, creation, and waiora.
We’ve told you about brains, assessments, whanaungatanga and manaakitanga.
We’ve told you our strength is in the knowledge we hold; the knowledge we consume.
We’ve stood to make a difference.
We’ve stood to lay claim to our places and our spaces.
We’ve walked long, and often lonely pathways to gather in our kete, those random letters that hang off our names.
All around you.
We’ve talked.
We’ve walked.
We’ve yelled.
We’ve cried.
We’ve screamed.
We’ve bled.
We’ve whispered.
And still.
Still
It is not enough.
Still
We are not enough.
Still
You tell us we do not exist.
And that
That
Is just not right
Links:
New Zealand Ministry of Justice Wai 2575 document
Radio New Zealand: More training needed to address Māori needs – Psychologist, 31 May 2018
New Zealand Hearld article: Māori psychologists pen an open letter to Luxon over boot camp policy
New Zealand Hearld, 24 November 2022
Scoop Independent News article: Psychology 'very cold, robotic' for Māori, 30 May 2018
Michelle Levy, March 2018 (www.michellelevy.net)
Lisa Cherrington, Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, Self-employed Clinical Psychologist (2019)
Updated 3 January 2025
