Evolving Psychiatry

A special episode on how evolutionary psychiatry and medicine came to be. Randolph Nesse, father of the field, gives an overview of his background, what it was like having to try and build a field before the internet, and the people who helped him along the way...Dr. Randolph “Randy” Nesse is a physician-scientist who helped launch the field of evolutionary medicine, showing how asking why our bodies and minds are vulnerable can guide better care. After nearly 40 years on the psychiatry faculty at the University of Michigan, he moved to Arizona State University to found and direct the Center for Evolution & Medicine, where he continues as a research professor. Randy co-authored the landmark bestseller Why We Get Sick and, more recently, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, which brings an evolutionary lens to mental health. He also founded the International Society for Evolution, Medicine & Public Health.This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

Stories abound in evolutionary psychology and psychiatry. How do we test them? In this third and final episode in this special series, Adam Hunt presents a way to standardise evolutionary hypothesis testing to make it more rigorous, reliable and systematic.

The article is available, open access, here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.70010

A summary blog post can be found here: https://www.adamhunt.info/post/the-dcide-framework-published-in-biological-reviews

Dr Adam Hunt is a researcher in the emerging field of evolutionary psychiatry at the Leverhulme Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge. Since 2019 he has served on the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He also sits on the board of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health. His PhD thesis entitled ‘Evolving Evolutionary Psychiatry and Explaining Neurodiversity’ received Summa Cumme Laude from the University of Zurich in spring 2024.

He has published multiple academic articles in journals such as Autism Research and Evolutionary Human Sciences on a range of topics, including how evolutionary psychiatry supports the concept of neurodiversity and how evolutionary theory explains individual differences in cognition and dissolves the distinction between psychopathology and personality. He has lectured and trained psychiatrists and psychotherapists in evolutionary psychiatry.

This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

Trying to explain disorders as functional is tempting, but often misses a critical point: sometimes it is not the disorder itself which is functional, but it is occurring as a by-product of a different adaptive system. In this second part of this special three part series, Adam Hunt explains this common confusion and the steps we can take to solve it.

The article which this episode is based on is available, open access, here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.70010

A summary blog post can be found here: https://www.adamhunt.info/post/the-dcide-framework-published-in-biological-reviews

Dr Adam Hunt is a researcher in the emerging field of evolutionary psychiatry at the Leverhulme Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge. Since 2019 he has served on the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He also sits on the board of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health. His PhD thesis entitled ‘Evolving Evolutionary Psychiatry and Explaining Neurodiversity’ received Summa Cumme Laude from the University of Zurich in spring 2024.

He has published multiple academic articles in journals such as Autism Research and Evolutionary Human Sciences on a range of topics, including how evolutionary psychiatry supports the concept of neurodiversity and how evolutionary theory explains individual differences in cognition and dissolves the distinction between psychopathology and personality. He has lectured and trained psychiatrists and psychotherapists in evolutionary psychiatry.

This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

Evolution has already happened, and we don't have a time machine: how can we test hypotheses about that process? This is a criticism raised since Darwin's time. In this special three part series, Adam Hunt presents his article which aims to make progress on this scientific methodology by providing an improved framework for evolutionary inference. This episode kicks off by giving the history of the problem.

The article which this episode is based on is available, open access, here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.70010

A summary blog post can be found here: https://www.adamhunt.info/post/the-dcide-framework-published-in-biological-reviews

Dr Adam Hunt is a researcher in the emerging field of evolutionary psychiatry at the Leverhulme Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge. Since 2019 he has served on the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He also sits on the board of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health. His PhD thesis entitled ‘Evolving Evolutionary Psychiatry and Explaining Neurodiversity’ received Summa Cumme Laude from the University of Zurich in spring 2024.

He has published multiple academic articles in journals such as Autism Research and Evolutionary Human Sciences on a range of topics, including how evolutionary psychiatry supports the concept of neurodiversity and how evolutionary theory explains individual differences in cognition and dissolves the distinction between psychopathology and personality. He has lectured and trained psychiatrists and psychotherapists in evolutionary psychiatry.

This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

Social media is bad for mental health right? Well... it's more complicated than that. In this episode, we discuss the ways in which novel digital technologies can also improve mental health, and how an evolutionary perspective on tech helps illuminate its dual effects of harming and healing.Tanay Katiyar is a PhD student, co-supervised by Amy Orben and Nikhil Chaudhary, at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (CBU) and the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge. Drawing on frameworks from cognitive science, evolutionary psychiatry and anthropology, he is currently investigating how our contemporary living conditions and digital environments both protect from and leave us vulnerable to mental health problems in novel ways. He studied economics as an undergraduate in India, and then did his masters in cognitive science at the ecole normale superieure in Paris. He is also a host of the Cognitations podcast, which is dedicated to cognitive science and interviews many renowned scholars across the psychological sciences.

This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

Did mental disorders evolve to provide benefits to the community around us? Well, maybe, but these sorts of explanations could be criticised as naive 'group selection'. In this episode Adam goes into the nuance of understanding how evolution actually works in this common area of debate.Dr Adam Hunt is a researcher in the emerging field of evolutionary psychiatry at the Leverhulme Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge. Since 2019 he has served on the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He also sits on the board of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health. His PhD thesis entitled ‘Evolving Evolutionary Psychiatry and Explaining Neurodiversity’ received Summa Cumme Laude from the University of Zurich in spring 2024.He has published multiple academic articles in journals such as Autism Research and Evolutionary Human Sciences on a range of topics, including how evolutionary psychiatry supports the concept of neurodiversity and how evolutionary theory explains individual differences in cognition and dissolves the distinction between psychopathology and personality. He has lectured and trained psychiatrists and psychotherapists in evolutionary psychiatry.This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

Why did the human species evolve autism? What about different forms of autism? How does an evolutionary perspective align with the neurodiversity movement? Dr Adam Hunt is a researcher in the emerging field of evolutionary psychiatry at the Leverhulme Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge. Since 2019 he has served on the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He also sits on the board of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health. His PhD thesis entitled ‘Evolving Evolutionary Psychiatry and Explaining Neurodiversity’ received Summa Cumme Laude from the University of Zurich in spring 2024. He has published multiple academic articles in journals such as Autism Research and Evolutionary Human Sciences on a range of topics, including how evolutionary psychiatry supports the concept of neurodiversity and how evolutionary theory explains individual differences in cognition and dissolves the distinction between psychopathology and personality. He has lectured and trained psychiatrists and psychotherapists in evolutionary psychiatry. This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

Why do autism and schizophrenia exist? What are 'fast and slow' life history strategies? What are controversies and opportunities facing the field of evolutionary psychiatry? In this episode, we go deep with Marco Del Giudice...
Dr. Marco Del Giudice is an Associate Professor in the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste, Italy. His interdisciplinary research sits at the crossroads of human behavior, evolution, and development, and has led to integrative models such as the Adaptive Calibration Model (ACM) of stress responsivity, an evolutionary-developmental model of sex differences in attachment, and a unifying life history framework for evolutionary psychopathology. His work spans personality, motivation, attachment styles, developmental plasticity, and more recently, evolutionary immunology. Awarded the 2016 Early Career Award by the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Dr. Del Giudice Is well known for pushing boundaries in understanding how evolution shapes our minds and behaviors, and his work in evolutionary psychiatry is well known, particularly for his book ‘Evolutionary Psychopathology’. Relevant Links:

Marco's website: https://marcodg.net Marco's book on evolutionary psychopathology: https://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Psychopathology-Marco-Del-Giudice/dp/0190246847/ A recent summary of the life history framework: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352815026_An_Integrative_Evolutionary_Framework_for_Psychopathology A presentation on the life history framework: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG9OD5rYszg A paper and chapter debating the fast-slow continuum: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341325706_Rethinking_the_Fast-Slow_Continuum_of_Individual_Differences https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380269033_A_Turning_Point_for_the_Life_History_Approach_to_Individual_Differences This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich. A paper on developmental models of plasticity vs. behavior genetics: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298693600_Differential_Susceptibility_to_the_Environment_Are_Developmental_Models_Compatible_With_the_Evidence_From_Twin_Studies A paper explaining why the effect of the shared environment are typically underestimated: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352414100_Are_we_comparing_apples_or_squared_apples_The_proportion_of_explained_variance_exaggerates_differences_between_effects Two papers on attachment from a modern evolutionary perspective: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322870667_Sex_Differences_in_Attachment_Styles https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346654707_Growing_Points_in_Attachment_Disorganization_Looking_Back_to_Advance_Forward Mike Abrams' book on evolutionarily-informed CBT: https://www.amazon.com/New-CBT-Mike-Abrams-author/dp/1516521625/

Humans rely on each other. Mothers, in particular, need help raising children. In this episode we discuss Professor Alessandra Cassar's work seeking to understand how maternal depression relates to gaining social support. We also touch on where evolutionary perspectives may be useful in structuring society more widely. Alessandra Cassar is a professor of economics at the University of San Francisco. Through laboratory and field experiments across the world, her studies focus on the contributions of evolutionary processes to shaping human behavior. Her current research concentrates on the under-studied areas of female competitiveness; the consequences of conflict and disaster victimization for altruism, trust, religiosity, risk, and time preferences; and the role of social networks for economic outcomes.

Why have humans evolved tendencies for substance addiction? In this episode, Adam and Tom discuss the evolutionary explanations for these vulnerabilities. The discussion is based on their paper "Evolutionary perspectives on substance and behavioural addictions: Distinct and shared pathways to understanding, prediction and prevention". Dr Tom Carpenter is a resident doctor in Psychiatry based in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and an Honorary Clinical Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. He is also a member of the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh after initially studying Human Sciences at the University of Oxford, completing a Master’s degree in research in Animal Behaviour at Newcastle University, and having a brief career in marketing. He has worked in a specialist addictions service in Glasgow and currently works in an early intervention in psychosis service. He has current research and engagement projects around the usefulness and impact of evolutionary psychoeducation for mental health clinicians.

Social media, video games, gambling... why are some activities so rewarding that we become addicted? In this episode, we discuss the reason humans are susceptible to 'behavioural addictions', referencing our shared paper 'Evolutionary perspectives on substance and behavioural addictions: Distinct and shared pathways to understanding, prediction and prevention'. Dr. Giuseppe Pierpaolo Merola is an Italian psychiatrist and researcher currently practicing at San Donato Arezzo Hospital and serving as a Visiting Researcher at King's College London. His work focuses on genetics and evolutionary psychiatry. He is the author of the popular science book "Il paradosso della schizofrenia" and multiple scientific papers.

Depression is often linked to adversity: why would it reliably appear in such conditions? Ed Hagen has spent over forty years wondering about this question, and is one of the world's foremost researchers on evolutionary approaches to depression. We discuss depression in this interview. Ed Hagen is a Pofessor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Washington State University. Professor Hagen began his academic career with a BA in mathematics from UC Berkeley and initially worked in an organic polymer lab before discovering his passion for anthropology. This led him to pursue a Ph.D. in anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, where he graduated in 1999. Following his doctoral studies, he joined Peter Hammerstein’s group at the Institute for Theoretical Biology at Humboldt University in Berlin. Since 2007, Dr. Hagen has been a faculty member at Washington State University, where he directs the Bioanthropology Lab. Dr. Hagen’s research explores evolutionary medicine, particularly focusing on non-infectious diseases—a field where traditional medicine has seen limited breakthroughs. His studies encompass various aspects of mental health, examining conditions like depression, suicide, and self-harm through the lens of evolutionary signaling strategies. He has also explored the complex dynamics of tobacco use and human interactions with plant secondary compounds, child growth and development (stemming from his research on postpartum depression), and more recently, evolutionary models of leadership and knowledge specialization. To connect with Dr. Hagen’s ongoing work, check out his blog at grasshoppermouse.github.io or follow him on Twitter at @ed_hagen and on Mastodon at @edhagen@fediscience.org.

The past is invisible - how are we supposed to know the truth behind our evolutionary history? In this episode, Adam Hunt discusses the complexity of the reality behind our evolution, and the limits of science in telling these stories. Dr Adam Hunt is a postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge. He received his PhD in evolutionary biology and philosophy from the University of Zurich in March of 2024, for his dissertation entitled 'Evolving Evolutionary Psychiatry and Explaining Neurodiversity'. He has been researching evolutionary psychiatry for eight years, since completing a Masters in philosophy of science at the University of Bristol. He is on the executive committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrist's evolutionary psychiatry special interest group and the council of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health.

In the Amazon rainforest, how would mental illness manifest? What is life in non-industrialised societies like? Camila Scaff discusses social life, loneliness, and her journey investigating mental health and disorder amongst the Tsimane of the Bolivian Amazon.

Dr. Camila Scaff earned her PhD in Cognitive Sciences from the École Normale Supérieure - Paris Diderot University (now Université Paris Cité). She holds split-time postdoctoral research fellowships with the Human Ecology Group at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Evolutionary Medicine and the Language Acquisition Across Cultures group at the École Normale Supérieure’s Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistiques (LSCP) in Paris. Her research explores how socioecological environments shape human cognitive and linguistic variation.

Evolutionary explanations of depression could change how we perceive the condition, and how depressed people perceive themselves. In this episode, clinical psychologist Hans Schroder discusses his experiences and research in providing functional explanations of depression to patients.

Hans Schroder is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan (U-M) Medical School and a Psychology Faculty Associate at U-M. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Michigan State University in 2018 and completed his internship and two-year postdoctoral fellowship at McLean Hospital / Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, followed by a 1-year postdoctoral fellowship at U-M in the Department of Psychiatry and the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine. As a licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Schroder’s primary role in Psychiatry is providing psychotherapy and exposure-based therapies to individuals and groups with anxiety and depressive disorders in the Adult Anxiety Clinic. His earlier research examined error-related brain activity using electroencephalogram (EEG) and its relation to anxiety and depression. His current research interests include understanding beliefs and messages about mental health (e.g., the “chemical imbalance” narrative) and their impacts on treatment expectations, decision-making and well-being. The goal of this research is to better equip patients and providers with messages that optimize motivation for improving mental health. You can follow Adam Hunt on Twitter/X @RealAdamHunt

Justin Garson is Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and a contributor for PsychologyToday.com and Aeon. He writes on the philosophy of madness, evolution of the mind, and purpose in nature. In this episode we discuss scientific concepts of dysfunction, the role of the paradigms framing psychiatry, and the possible benefits of evolutionary thinking about mental 'disorders'. Justin has two recently published books you should check out: Madness: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford University Press, 2022) and The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2022). You can connect with Justin on Twitter @Justin_Garson You can connect with Adam on Twitter @RealAdamHunt

Joe Polimeni is a Canadian general psychiatrist and Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba who has conducted research in neuroscience, psychopharmacology and evolutionary psychiatry. His book, Shamans Among Us, outlines his hypothesis regarding the evolution of schizophrenia, which is the topic of this episode. You can purchase the book here: https://josephpolimeni.com/purchase.html You can follow Adam Hunt on Twitter/X @RealAdamHunt

Jerome Wakefield is a professor of social work in the Silver School of Social Work at New York University. Much of his work is in the history and philosophy of psychiatry. He is renowned in evolutionary psychiatry for his "harmful dysfunction" analysis of mental illness.

We discuss our evolved human nature and how we can designate 'disorder' given our understanding of biological design, the pathologisation of normal sadness as depression, and the worth of evolutionary psychiatry to society.

You can follow Adam Hunt on X/Twitter @RealAdamHunt

Tom Carpenter is a trainee psychiatrist in the West of Scotland. He is the trainee representative on the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

In this episode, we discuss Tom's intellectual history, the place of psychiatry in society and how we judge people, and how evolutionary thinking may affect psychiatry going forward.

You can follow Adam Hunt on Twitter/X at @RealAdamHunt

Gurjot Brar is a trainee psychiatrist in Ireland. He runs the 'Evolution and Psychiatry' substack, a monthly collaborative 'journal' dedicated to discussing and exploring how evolutionary science can inform our understanding of psychiatry.

In this episode we discuss how Gurjot got introduced to evolutionary psychiatry and the major points he finds exciting about the field.

You can follow him on Twitter/X at @gurjotbrarmd

You can follow Adam on Twitter/X at @RealAdamHunt

Professor Henry O’Connell is a Consultant Psychiatrist working in Portlaoise, Ireland and Associate Clinical Professor with the School of Medicine at the University of Limerick. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin in 1997, he obtained his Membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2001. He holds Masters and doctorate level postgraduate qualifications in medical education and delirium research. In this episode, we discuss Henry's experience as a medical educator, the most important principles and takeaways of evolutionary psychiatry, and its clinical relevance. You can follow Henry on Twitter/X at @henrypoconnell You can follow Adam on Twitter/X at @realadamhunt

Kristen Syme is an Assistant Professor of Suicide and Suicide Prevention at Leiden University. She is an evolutionary anthropologist who works on understanding suicidal and self harm behavior from an evolutionary perspective, and works with the Chon Chuuk of Micronesia and the USA. In this episode Kristen and Adam discuss cases of adolescent-parent conflict, the outcomes and evolutionary models which help us understand such conflicts. You can follow Kristen on Twitter @KristenSyme You can follow Adam on Twitter @RealAdamHunt

Kristen Syme is an Assistant Professor of Suicide and Suicide Prevention at Leiden University. She is an evolutionary anthropologist who works on understanding suicidal and self harm behavior from an evolutionary perspective, and works with the Chon Chuuk of Micronesia and the USA.

In this episode Kristen and Adam discuss the bargaining model of suicidal behavior and depression, especially regarding adolescent-parent conflict.

You can follow Kristen on Twitter @KristenSyme

You can follow Adam on Twitter @RealAdamHunt

Season 2 of the Evolving Psychiatry Podcast begins with a brief comment on what's to come in the season, as Adam interviews psychiatrists and researchers who work in evolutionary psychiatry. Adam then discuss a fundamental theoretical advantage of evolutionary psychiatry and medicine, which is its ability to define health and disorder objectively.

Adam Hunt is a PhD student researching evolutionary psychiatry in the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich. You can follow Adam Hunt on Twitter @RealAdamHunt

Randolph Nesse's second interview covers anxiety of all kinds; why are humans so vulnerable to it, where it is helpful and harmful, and his experience treating patients with anxiety whilst informed by an evolutionary perspective.  

This episode is based on a chapter titled 'Anxiety Disorders in Evolutionary Perspective', authored by Randolph Nesse. It is chapter 7 in the book 'Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health", published by Cambridge University Press. 

The video form of this episode is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y98HdH2zsBA

The book is available for purchase here:  

via Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/evolutionary-psychiatry/2A1862AA7A2D78F946A34475D98425EB 

via Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evolutionary-Psychiatry-Current-Perspectives-Evolution/dp/1316516563/ 

You can follow Adam Hunt on Twitter @RealAdamHunt and Randolph Nesse @RandyNesse