Evolution and Psychiatry Special Interest Group
Vice-Chair: Dr Gurjot Brar
Contact the Group
To contact the group or if you would like to join, please email Helen Murray at hmurray@irishpsychiatry.ie or call (01) 6618450, email SIG Chair Prof Henry O’Connell at hpoconnell@yahoo.ie, or email SIG Vice-Chair Dr Gurjot Brar at gurjotbrarmd@proton.me.
Aims
This SIG aims to raise awareness of the evolutionary basis to psychiatric illness and to explore the potential for the clinical and research applications of this newly emerging field of study.
The SIG will work to complement the College objectives.
- The SIG will meet three times yearly in February, May and October to present and discuss ideas for research and writing in the area of evolutionary science applied to psychiatry.
- The SIG will have a Chair and Vice Chair.
- The SIG will aim to submit contributions for the CPsychI Spring and Winter meetings every year.
- The SIG will aim to collaborate with other relevant national and international professional organisations, such as the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the World Psychiatric Association Section on Evolutionary Psychiatry.
- In the longer term, the SIG will aim to produce statement papers on various mental disorders and on healthcare strategy.
- In the longer term, the SIG will aim to develop research proposals and projects.
Evolution & Psychiatry SIG Chair Professor Henry O’Connell discusses the aims and accomplishments of the Special Interest Group to date (published 24 March 2023).
View the full playlist of presentations from the Evolution and Psychiatry Special Interest Group here.
Full list of presentations:
- Inaugural meeting on Darwin Day, 12th February 2021, Presentation on “Health Care: Do we really know who we are treating” by Prof Mike Watts – https://youtu.be/DJ_7C9N9Mak
- Second Special Interest Group Meeting, 21st May 2021, Presentation on “The Evolutionary Psychology of Eating Disorders: The Sexual Competition Hypothesis” by Dr Riadh Abed – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-X-qnpK_h8
- Third Special Interest Group Meeting, 15th October 2021, Presentation on “Evolutionary Perspectives on autism and ADHD” by Dr Annie Swanepoel – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBbftpM-CoA
- Fourth Special Interest Group Meeting, 4th February 2022, Presentation on “Why hasn’t natural selection eliminated mental disorders? Knowing the five reasons improves clinical care as well as research” by Dr Randolph Nesse – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvpKLpwCEC8
- Fifth Special Interest Group Meeting, 6th May 2022, Presentation on “Extending adaptive explanations of personality to the Evolution of Psychopathology” by Adam Hunt – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx_pnEUpNmY
- Sixth Special Interest Group Meeting, 14th October 2022, Presentation on “The ‘whys’ of psychiatric illness” by Professor Kevin J Mitchell – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As8TMUC8zPg
- Seventh Special Interest Group Meeting, 10th February 2022, Presentation on “Some Evolutionary Perspectives on Drug Misuse and Addictions” by Dr Paul St John-Smith – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwrrHg0k4U8
- Eighth Special Interest Group Meeting, 5th May 2022, Presentations by Essay Prize Winners Dr Silva Vartukapteine and Dr Gurjot Brar on the title “Evolution and Psychiatry: A New Paradigm or a False Dawn?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANbJyiJGETo
– Friday 13th October at 10am
College Faculty/SIG and committee meetings can garner 1 internal or external CPD credit per meeting up to a maximum of 10 credits per PCS year.
Email Helen Murray, Faculty and Special Interest Group Manager at hmurray@irishpsychiatry.ie for free registration to upcoming meetings.
- Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatry
- World Psychiatric Association section on Evolutionary Psychiatry
- ASU Centre for Evolution and Medicine
- International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health (ISEMPH)
- The Human Behaviour and Evolution Society (HBES)
29 JUNE 2023 | 4:00PM BST
Human brain evolution – vulnerability to neuropsychiatric disease by design?
Prof Martin Brune (Germany)
New to Evolution and Psychiatry? Start here:
- The promise of evolutionary psychiatry by Professor Jerome Wakefield, from World Psychiatry: 22(2), 173-174
- Evolutionary psychiatry: foundations, progress and challenges by Randolph Nesse, from World Psychiatry: 22(2), 173-174
Further Articles from this Group
- Evolution and psychiatry: the formation of a special interest group by Dr Gurjot Brar and Professor Henry O’Connell, from the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine*
- Book Review: How religion evolved and why it endures by Robin Dunbar, review by Dr Gurjot Brar and Professor Henry O’Connell, from the British Psychological Society
- Banging the drum: evolutionary and cultural origins of music and its implications for psychiatry by Gerry Rafferty, Gurjot Brar, Mara Petrut, David Meagher, Henry O’Connell, Paul St John-Smith, from the BJPsych Bulletin.
- The use of psychedelics in psychiatric treatment – evolutionary perspectives by Dr Gurjot Brar and Professor Henry O’Connell, from the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine*
- Special Interest: Evolution and Psychiatry by Professor Henry O’Connell, from the CPsychI Think Tank newsletter
- Book Review: Good reasons for bad feelings: insights from the frontier of evolutionary psychiatry by Randolph M. Nesse by Professor Henry O’Connell, Dr Mara Petrut & Dr Diarmuid Boyle, from the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine*
- Evolutionary theory in psychiatry and psychology by Professor Henry O’Connell, from the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine*
- Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913): evolution and medicine by Professor Henry O’Connell (2009), from the Journal of Medical Biography: 17(4), 214-216
- 150 years of evolutionary theory by Professor Henry O’Connell (2008), from British Journal of Psychiatry: 193 (3), 258-259
- Attachment disorders: an evolutionary perspective by Professor Henry O’Connell (2007), from the British Journal of Psychiatry: 191, 459; author reply 459-60.
- What is Evolutionary Psychiatry? by Dr Gurjot Brar & Professor Henry O’Connell, from the Evolution & Psychiatry Substack Newsletter
*College members can access the IJPM by logging in to their MyCollege accounts and clicking the access link on the IJPM tab.
Suggestions are welcome in relation to research/writing themes by emailing Professor O’Connell, hpoconnell@yahoo.ie, Dr Gurjot Brar, gurjotbrarmd@proton.me, or Ms Murray, hmurray@irishpsychiatry.ie.
Subscribe to the EPSIG substack here.
Further Reading
- From YouTube: Evolving Psychology Podcast EP25: Evolutionary Education and Impact featuring Professor Henry O’Connell
- Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health by Riadh Abed and Paul St John-Smith
- Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry by Randolph M. Nesse
- From YouTube: Why We Get Sad: How Evolution Makes Sense of Emotional Disorders by Randolph M. Nesse from 2016, by the RCPsych EPSIG. View the full Evolutionary Psychiatry playlist from Heal the Zeal here.
- Evolution and Psychiatry: Clinical Cases by Henry O’Connell
- On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin (1859)
- Evolutionary Psychiatry, second edition: A New Beginning by Anthony Stevens and John Price
- Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine by Randolph M. Nesse and George Williams
- The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions by Jaak Panksepp and Lucy Biven
- Genes on the Couch: Explorations in Evolutionary Psychotherapy by Paul Gilbert and Kent G. Bailey
- Textbook of Evolutionary Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine: The Origins of Psychopathology by Martin Brune
- The Maladapted Mind: Classic Readings in Evolutionary Psychopathology by Simon Baron-Cohen
- Maladapting Minds: Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Evolutionary Theory by Pieter R. Adriaens and Andreas De Block
- The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Medicine by Martin Brüne and Wulf Schiefenhövel
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
- The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution by David Quammen
- Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind by David M Buss
- The New CBT: Clinical Evolutionary Psychology by Mike Abrams
- Darwinian Psychiatry by Michael T. McGuire