The violence of an idealized family: A kleinian psychoanalytic reading of te rito

Abstract

While Aotearoa/New Zealand is a world leader in the arena of family violence policy, it has a long history of violence between its Maori and Western inhabitants that continues to manifest in its policy-making structures. In this chapter, we shall introduce the Aotearoa/New Zealand cultural context and relate it to Kleinian psychoanalytic concepts (paranoid-schizoid position, splitting, idealization and introjection); describe a specific family violence policy called Te Rito before using Kleinian concepts to help us read this text. Finally, we shall critically reflect on the processes used in this chapter and explore implications of this analysis for family violence policy internationally.