Whaka means act. 

Aro means desire.

Whakaaro mean the act of desire. Thoughts are acts of desire.

IO is always complete. 

Behind every thought is a desire and that desire is to be complete. This is the universal desire to return to wholeness. 

Whakaaro are transient. Whakaaro come from the outside and then they go. A whakaaro mahara is a thought that has become internal, a thought you have inherited or something that arises within you.  They are not yet influenced by anything from outside.

People are highly creative, they stir things up and create taniwha eg. 'no one believes in me'. The taniwha will cause you to react, to become defensive until you have dealt with your  tanewha. You know you have dealt with it when you no longer react to it. Tanewha will present themselves over and over in your life until you deal with them. The tanewha will manifest in situations that reinforce the tanewha. If your tanewha is 'no one believes me' then your life will present you with situations in which people appear to be disbelieving of you.

If you wrap your taniwha with an emotion, like fear, then tane (the tamariki that represents tanemahuta, the creative force) will take them both and create from the energy of the tanewha thought form and the emotion. Tane always has energy and always creates. Tane always creates from the dominant energy.  

Tanewha act through the coupena (the net of connection between everything).

To assist with a Taniwha analysis the therapist could use externalising conversations to understand the influence of the problem on the person. This could involve identifying and evaluating the effects of the problem, trace the history of the problem and relative influence questions.

Engaging with the taniwha could enhance the clients personal agency eg. by co-researching to discover characteristics, values and beliefs. 

By addressing discourses it may be possible to help the client to trace the history of the taniwha. If it is an inherited taniwha this may become evident. 

A narrative therapist could enquire into whether the taniwha is a legacy.