When Healing Looks Like Justice: An Interview with Harvard Psychologist Joseph Gone

In American Indian communities, there is a well-developed discourse that runs parallel to the discourse of mental health. Historical trauma is the linchpin of that because it is an alternative, or I might say ‘alter-native’ way of talking about indigenous suffering that, in some cases, rejects DSM diagnostic categories. It has different views about what it means to be a healthy person, which is not necessarily neoliberal individualism, where free agents navigate free markets in pursuit of happiness, success, and productivity. Instead, it deals with one’s location within a kinship network and position relative to the unfolding of a community’s existence.

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