Photo of Joseph P Gone

Joseph Patrick Gone, PhD

Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Faculty Director, Harvard University Native American Program
Professor, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University

Joseph P. Gone, Ph.D., is an international expert in the psychology and mental health of American Indians and other Indigenous peoples. A professor at Harvard University, Dr. Gone has collaborated with tribal communities for 25 years to re-envision conventional mental health services for advancing Indigenous well-being. Even while undertaking unpredictable community-based partnerships, Professor Gone has published 85 scientific articles and chapters, and has been awarded Fellow status by the Association for Psychological Science and by seven divisions of the American Psychological Association. An enrolled member of the Aaniiih-Gros Ventre tribal nation of Montana, he also served briefly as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Fort Belknap Indian reservation. A graduate of Harvard College and the University of Illinois, Professor Gone also trained at Dartmouth College and McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He taught at the University of Michigan for sixteen years, where he directed the Native American Studies program prior to joining the faculty at Harvard. A recipient of several fellowships and career awards, Professor Gone completed a residency at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in 2011. In 2014, he was named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He is currently a Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Research Leaders Program (through 2020) of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Joseph P. Gone is Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine (in the Faculty of Medicine) and Professor of Anthropology (in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences) at Harvard University. As an interdisciplinary social scientist with both theoretical and applied interests, Professor Gone has collaborated for 25 years with American Indian and other Indigenous communities to rethink community-based mental health services and to harness traditional culture and spirituality for advancing indigenous well-being. He does so from the perspective of a scholar who is trained in health service psychology, inspired by anthropology-style interpretive analysis, and committed to participatory research strategies. An enrolled member of the Aaniiih-Gros Ventre tribal nation of Montana, Gone has attended to the distinctive cultural psychologies of Indigenous communities to identify local concepts of wellness and distress, to uncover the logics of Indigenous therapeutic traditions, to reframe clinical care with respect to Indigenous traditional knowledges, and to reimagine mental health services toward greater benefit for these populations. Examples of Professor Gone’s projects include comparisons of specific facets of Indigenous cultural psychology with the logics of the mental health professions; critical analysis of the concept of Indigenous historical trauma; collaborative development of the Blackfeet Culture Camp for community-based treatment of addiction; and commissioned formulation of the Urban American Indian Traditional Spirituality Program for orienting urban Indigenous peoples to traditional spiritual practices. These investigations have entailed intimate familiarity with modern indigenous lives and settings, open-ended investigation of local and emergent indigenous understandings, adaptable presentation of research findings for both academic and community constituencies, and an intrepid dedication to unsettling the orthodoxies cherished by any of Professor Gone’s audiences.

Decolonization as methodological innovation in counseling psychology: Method, power, and process in reclaiming American Indian therapeutic traditions.
Authors: Authors: Gone JP.
J Couns Psychol
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A first look at the working alliance in psychotherapy with American Indians.
Authors: Authors: Beitel M, Gone JP, Myhra LL, Cutter CJ, Barry DT.
Psychotherapy (Chic)
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The Urban American Indian Traditional Spirituality Program: Promoting Indigenous Spiritual Practices for Health Equity.
Authors: Authors: Gone JP, Tuomi A, Fox N.
Am J Community Psychol
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Advancing Indigenous Mental Health Research: Ethical, conceptual and methodological challenges.
Authors: Authors: Gone JP, Kirmayer LJ.
Transcult Psychiatry
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Substance Use Research with Indigenous Communities: Exploring and Extending Foundational Principles of Community Psychology.
Authors: Authors: Wendt DC, Hartmann WE, Allen J, Burack JA, Charles B, D'Amico EJ, Dell CA, Dickerson DL, Donovan DM, Gone JP, O'Connor RM, Radin SM, Rasmus SM, Venner KL, Walls ML.
Am J Community Psychol
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"The Thing Happened as He Wished": Recovering an American Indian Cultural Psychology.
Authors: Authors: Gone JP.
Am J Community Psychol
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Cultural Context in DSM Diagnosis: An American Indian Case Illustration of Contradictory Trends.
Authors: Authors: Langa ME, Gone JP.
Transcult Psychiatry
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American Indian historical trauma: Anticolonial prescriptions for healing, resilience, and survivance.
Authors: Authors: Hartmann WE, Wendt DC, Burrage RL, Pomerville A, Gone JP.
Am Psychol
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The impact of historical trauma on health outcomes for indigenous populations in the USA and Canada: A systematic review.
Authors: Authors: Gone JP, Hartmann WE, Pomerville A, Wendt DC, Klem SH, Burrage RL.
Am Psychol
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Native American Perspectives on Health and Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
Authors: Authors: Isaac G, Finn S, Joe JR, Hoover E, Gone JP, Lefthand-Begay C, Hill S.
Environ Health Perspect
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