Darwinian Psychiatry

"The authors are psychiatrists who have done distinguished experimental work in primatology. They summarize evolutionary influences on everyday behavior, and argue convincingly for this area as a science basic to psychiatry."--The Quarterly Review of Biology"Darwinian Psychiatry represents a encyclopedic, ambitious and well-argued attempt to convince its readers that the field of psychiatry would benefit from the explicit incorporation of evolutionary theory, and offers nothing short of a complete reconceptualization of mental disorders. McGuire and Troisi are writers of considerable distinction in the psychiatry literature...their scholarship is unmistakable and their shared knowledge startlinglycomprehensive. The overall tone of the work is relatively conversational, a style that well befits the obvious familiarity of the authors with the tenets of evolutionary theory and their knowledge of mentalconditions. Well thought out, well-structured, and well written...the application of their ideas is both comparatively straightforward and appropriately provocative." -- Metapsychology (Mental Help Net's Bookstore)"The authors are psychiatrists who have done distinguished experimental work in primatology. They summarize evolutionary influences on everyday behavior, and argue convincingly for this area as a science basic to psychiatry."--The Quarterly Review of Biology"Darwinian Psychiatry represents a encyclopedic, ambitious and well-argued attempt to convince its readers that the field of psychiatry would benefit from the explicit incorporation of evolutionary theory, and offers nothing short of a complete reconceptualization of mental disorders. McGuire and Troisi are writers of considerable distinction in the psychiatry literature...their scholarship is unmistakable and their shared knowledge startlinglycomprehensive. The overall tone of the work is relatively conversational, a style that well befits the obvious familiarity of the authors with the tenets of evolutionary theory and their knowledge of mentalconditions. Well thought out, well-structured, and well written...the application of their ideas is both comparatively straightforward and appropriately provocative." -- Metapsychology (Mental Help Net's Bookstore)

• I. Introduction ; 1. Darwinian psychiatry - the context ; 2. Diagnosing and explaining disorders/conditions ; II. An evolutionary context for disorders ; 3. Evolutionary concepts important to psychiatry ; 4. A theory of behavior ; 5. Mechanisms, emotions, moods, symptoms, and affects ; 6. Information processing ; 7. Evolutionary models of disorders/conditions ; 8. Regulation-dysregulation theory ; III. Disorders and conditions in evolutionary context ; 9. Personality disorders ; 10. Anorexia nervosa ; 11. Schizophrenia ; 12. Phobias ; 13. Other conditions ; 14. Dysthymic disorder: a study of infrastructural suboptimality ; IV. Treatment in evolutionary context ; 15. Treatment in evolutionary context ; V. Conclusion ; 16. Summary and conclusion