How Do We Create Systems That Heal

One of the assumptions underpinning modern healthcare is that systems are designed to help people. Yet history reminds us that systems, no matter how well-intentioned, are never neutral. They carry with them certain ways of understanding the world, assumptions about what constitutes health and illness, and ideas about who holds knowledge and power. The question, therefore, is not simply whether systems work, but whose knowledge they recognise and whose voices they silence.

Listening to Kerri Butler reflect on her own journey reveals that healing is not only about treatment. It is also about identity, belonging, and the stories we inherit from those who came before us.

Growing up, Kerri's strongest connection to Te Ao Māori came through her nanny. Yet over time, the system that was meant to provide care had gradually redefined this woman. Rather than being recognised as the mana wāhine she was, she became known primarily as a psychiatric patient. The effects of that re-identification extended far beyond a diagnosis. Separation from whānau, years of institutionalisation, and the visible impacts of treatment shaped how others saw her and, perhaps more painfully, how subsequent generations came to understand their own whakapapa.

Only much later did Kerri discover that her nanny spoke Te Reo Māori. Somehow, a part of her identity had disappeared beneath the labels and narratives imposed by the system.

This discovery raised deeper questions. What happens when systems become so powerful that they redefine people? What happens when diagnoses become identities? What happens when stories of strength, culture, and humanity are replaced by stories of illness?

These are not abstract questions. They are deeply personal.

While writing her dissertation, Kerri was brought to tears as she began to understand the layers of harm experienced not only by her but also by her nanny. The process became something more than an academic inquiry. It became an act of remembrance and healing.

As she put it, in telling her own story, she was also telling the story her nanny never had the opportunity to tell.

Perhaps one of the most unsettling insights she encountered was the realisation that systems possess an extraordinary capacity to reinvent and legitimise themselves. Through data collection, classifications, assessments, and institutional language, people can become subjects through which certain forms of knowledge are validated while others are marginalised. The danger is not simply that systems make mistakes. The danger is that those mistakes can become normalised and embedded within structures that appear objective and scientific.

For Māori, these consequences have been profound.

Kerri speaks openly about growing up largely informed through a Western lens. Yet throughout her life, there remained a sense that something was missing. During one of her earliest admissions, she recalls telling clinicians that she had begun learning Te Reo Māori. Those words were recorded in her notes. Yet no one paused to ask why. No one considered the significance of cultural disconnection or explored the possibility that reconnection to Te Ao Māori might itself be part of healing.

The absence of such questions reveals an important truth. Systems often excel at identifying symptoms while overlooking meaning.

And when people begin reclaiming that meaning, systems do not always respond kindly.

One of Kerri's most striking observations is that as she became more connected to Te Ao Māori and more knowledgeable about her rights, her journey through the system became harder. The more firmly she stood in her own rangatiratanga, the more resistance she encountered.

Power, she observes, does not always relinquish itself easily.

Yet despite these experiences, Kerri refuses to reduce the conversation to one of villains and victims. She is equally clear that she has encountered remarkable clinicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, and nurses who embody a different way of working.

The difference, she says, lies in the willingness to share power.

Rather than insisting "You do this because I know best", these practitioners ask questions. They explain medications. They transfer knowledge. They listen. They recognise that both professional expertise and lived experience have value.

"Tell me about the medication you want to give me," she says, "and I'll tell you about me."

In that simple exchange, something profound happens.

Relationships become reciprocal rather than transactional.

Healing becomes something done with people rather than to them.

Knowledge becomes shared rather than imposed.

And perhaps that is where hope lies.

Not in abandoning science, nor in rejecting professional expertise, but in recognising that no single knowledge system is sufficient by itself. Healing requires relationships. It requires humility. It requires cultural understanding. And above all, it requires remembering that behind every file, every diagnosis, and every assessment is a human being whose story is larger than the labels attached to them.

Kerri often speaks of the fire in her belly. She believes that fire comes from her whakapapa, from her nanny, and from a determination that future generations should not experience the same harms.

Her advocacy is not born from bitterness. It is born from love.

Love for her whānau.

Love for her daughters and mokopuna.

Love for communities that deserve better.

And perhaps that is the challenge she leaves us with.

Not simply how we improve services.

But how do we create systems that remember the humanity, dignity, culture, and stories of the people they exist to serve?

Because healing begins when people are seen not merely as patients, but as whole human beings.

Full Podcast: How Do We Create Systems That Heal