“The one who loves the most will live the most” — Ernest Holmes 

Evolutionary neuropsychiatry is a broad field encompassing various schools of thought pertaining to the evolutionary pressures that gave rise to the structures and functions of the human brain. Simply put, the field is an attempt to understand why we have evolved to sense, think, feel, and act the way that we do. It helps us understand our basic survival needs and instincts (respiration, cardiovascular function, consciousness, hunger, thirst, attachment and love), as well as functions that help us experience and understand the world (vision, hearing, cognitive processing). 

It can help us appreciate the social causes of our suffering (disappointment, loss, and grief, for example) and how unmitigated suffering can lead to mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. The full spectrum of the human condition – from wellness to illness – across all domains of brain functioning (cognitive, emotional, social, and motor, etc) exists for a reason. Many conditions developed as a survival strategy in adverse environments and are useful and can be in fact adaptive, until they are not. 

Evolutionary neuropsychiatry can also help us understand the impact of stress, adversity, and resilience across generations. On some levels, our ancestors unknowingly prepared us for the lives they thought we might have to live by encoding elaborate how-to guides with signal flares through epigenetic changes in our DNA, which may or may not be helpful, because the landscapes of society and a human life are too mercurial to predict across generations, as hard as our our species might try. 

Here are some resources to help you start exploring evolutionary neuropsychiatry:

Evolving a new neuropsychiatry, by Gregory Fricchione, read here. 

Compassion and Healing in Medicine and Society: On the Nature and Use of Attachment Solutions to Separation Challenges, by Gregory Fricchione, find it here. 

Textbook of Evolutionary Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine: the Origins of Psychopathology, 2nd edition, by Martin Brüne, find it here.