I presented at a webinar to a group of European psychiatric trainees on 17.01.24. Thanks to Davide Zani for the invitation (happily he reached out to me after finding the Evolving Psychiatry podcast). It was an excellent turnout, and attendees posed good questions.
The summary was: Evolutionary psychiatry asks why human brains and genes predispose us towards developing mental disorders, at the evolutionary level: why did our species evolve vulnerabilities to these conditions? This presentation will cover some broad principles for applying evolutionary thinking to understanding mental disorders (e.g. how modern environments cause odd conditions for our bodies and minds), and present some specific hypotheses regarding particular disorders (e.g. postnatal depression; social anxiety).
