Byron J. Good, PhD

Byron J. Good is Professor of Medical Anthropology and former Chair (2000-2006), Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University. Dr. Good is Director of Programs in Global Mental Health in the Department of Social Medicine. He is Director of the International Mental Health Training Program, funded by the Fogarty International Center to train psychiatrists from China in mental health services research, and Co-Director of the NIMH Training Program in Culture and Mental Health Services, which has brought post-doctoral trainees in medical and psychiatric anthropology to Harvard for 24 years.

Dr. Good’s present work focuses on research and mental health services development in Asian societies, particularly Indonesia. He has been a regular Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Gadjah Mada University, in Jogyakarta, Indonesia. He has conducted research with colleagues there on the early phases of psychotic illness for more than 10 years, and is Co-Director of the International Pilot Study of the Onset of Psychosis (IPSOS), a multi-site study of early experiences of psychosis and care-seeking in Indonesia (Jogyakarta, Jakarta), China (Shanghai, Beijing), Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Boston. For the past two years, Prof. Good has been collaborating with Prof. Mary-Jo Good and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on developing mental health services in post-tsunami and post-conflict Aceh (Indonesia). They have conducted major, research- based evaluations of levels of military violence and trauma suffered by civilian communities in rural Aceh, and are currently collaborating with IOM to provide and evaluate outreach mental health care to 75 high conflict villages in Aceh.

Prof. Good’s broader interests focus on the theorization of subjectivity in contemporary societies — on the relation of political, cultural, and psychological renderings of the subject and experience, with a special interest in Indonesia. He is an editor of two new volumes published by the University of California Press: Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations (Biehl, Good & Kleinman, 2007), and Postcolonial Disorders (M. Good, Hyde, Pinto & B. Good, 2008). He continues to investigate how culture and social forms structure the onset, experience, and course of psychiatric disorders, and is an editor of Culture and Panic Disorder (D. Hinton & Good, Stanford University Press, forthcoming 2009). And in the past several years he has been involved in building and evaluating mental health services in low resource settings in Asia, particularly in Aceh. Dr. Good is a former editor-in-chief of the international journal Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry (from 1986-2004) and has been a member of numerous editorial boards. He is currently a member of the board of editors of Early Intervention in Psychiatry.

Courses Taught

Research Interests

  • Early experiences, care-seeking, course and outcome of psychotic illness
  • Culture and psychosis in Java (Indonesia)
  • Trauma, mental illness, and mental health interventions in post-conflict Aceh (Indonesia)
  • Theorization of subjectivity in contemporary societies
  • The role of artists in shaping subjectivity in post-Suharto Indonesia

Current Projects

  • International Pilot Study of the Onset of Psychosis (IPSOS)
  • Direct Health and Psychosocial Assistance Project – Extension (Mental Health Services Project in Post-Conflict Aceh, funded by the World Bank)
  • Research on early experiences of psychosis in Indonesia
  • Longitudinal studies of the course of psychotic illness in Java

Select Publications

  • Richard Shweder and Byron Good, eds. Clifford Geertz by his Colleagues. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
  • Byron Good, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Jesse Grayman, and Matthew Lakoma. Psychosocial Needs Assessment of Communities Affected by the Conflict in the Districts of Pidie, Bireuen and Aceh Utara. International Organization for Migration (2006).
  • Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Byron Good, Jesse Grayman, and Matthew Lakoma. A Psychosocial Needs Assessment of Communities in 14 Conflict-Affected Districts in Aceh. International Organization for Migration (2007).
  • Joao Biehl, Byron Good, and Arthur Kleinman, eds. Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations. ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
  • Joao Biehl, Byron Good, and Arthur Kleinman. “Introduction: Rethinking Subjectivity,” in Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations (2007).
  • Byron Good, Subandi, and Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good. “The Subject of Mental Illness: Psychosis, Mad Violence, and Subjectivity in Indonesia,” in Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations (2007).
  • Lawrence Hsin Yang, Arthur Kleinman, Bruce G. Link, Jo C. Phelan, Sing Lee, and Byron Good. “Culture and Stigma: Adding Moral Experience to Stigma Theory.” Social Science and Medicine 64:1524-1535 (2007).
  • Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Sandra Hyde, Sarah Pinto, and Byron Good, eds. Postcolonial Disorders. Berkeley: University of California Press (2008).
  • Byron Good, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Sandra Hyde, and Sarah Pinto.“Postcolonial Disorders: Reflections on Subjectivity in the Modern World,” in Postcolonial Disorders (2008).
  • Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good and Byron Good.“Indonesia Sakit’/ Indonesian Disorders: Subjective Experience and Interpretive Politics of Indonesian Artists in Post Suharto Indonesia,” in Postcolonial Disorders (2008).
  • Devon Hinton and Byron Good, eds. Culture and Panic Disorder. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, forthcoming 2009).