Evolution, Psychiatry & the Environment (Green Psychiatry & Biophilia)
Prof. Henry O'Connell discusses the environment, green psychiatry and biophilia and how it relates to Evolution and Psychiatry. Edited by Dr Gurjot Brar
This article was inspired by one of the keynote talks at the Annual Conference 2023 of the Maltese Association of Psychiatry in Novemeber 2023 delivered by Henry himself.
Hi Henry, thanks for doing this, for those who missed your excellent talk, could you give us a brief introduction?
It was a great honour and pleasure to be there again in beautiful Malta for this conference. I congratulate the organizers on a superb conference and I thank them for the kind invitation to attend and contribute.
I spoke about evolutionary perspectives on mental illness, relating this to wider environmental principles and outlining how this can all help us to better treat our patients.
Despite my immersion in the area of evolutionary psychiatry on and off for over twenty years, I have found only a few direct clinical applications of evolutionary thinking in psychiatry.
However, I have no doubt that thinking with an evolutionary perspective about mental health and mental illness has made me a better doctor for my patients. The evolutionary perspective has also made me more fulfilled and enthusiastic as a doctor and as a scientist.
I began by defining evolution and some key evolutionary principles and then went on to give an overview of evolutionary psychiatry, primarily from a clinical perspective. I then gave some definitions of what is meant by ‘the environment’. Finally, I outlined how evolutionary and environmental perspectives on mental health and mental illness are related and how adopting these broader perspectives can help in the treatment and prevention of mental illness.
For those unfamiliar with evolution and psychiatry or those simply preferring a refresher, my previous article on the basic principles of evolution and it’s applications to health and illness can be found here:
Henry what is your definition of Evolutionary Psychiatry and why do you think it is important?
Evolutionary psychiatry has been defined as ‘the subfield of evolutionary medicine that uses the basic science of evolutionary biology to better understand and treat mental disorders’ (Nesse and Stein, 2019).
I have no doubt that thinking with an evolutionary perspective about normal mental health and mental illness has made me a more effective, more fulfilled and more enthusiastic doctor and scientist.
One of the key implications of adopting an evolutionary perspective as a psychiatrist is that it prompts one to think not only as a mechanic who fixes problems but also as an engineer who thinks about our long-evolved systems and the situations that cause us to develop these problems in the first place.
The biopsychosocial model currently employed in psychiatry is very limited in scope and deeply flawed, focussing primarily on proximate or ‘how’ questions relating to mental illness and failing to meaningfully pull together the interrelated and arbitrarily divided biological, psychological and social areas. As highlighted by Adam Hunt, Paul St John-Smith and Riadh Abed in chapter 2 of their recently published textbook, there is an urgent need for a review and overhaul of the biopsychosocial model, or maybe we should even abandon it altogether and reframe a new approach.
Such a new approach should be informed by viewing not just proximate or ‘how’ questions about normal mental health and mental illness, but also by viewing ultimate or ‘why’ questions as to why we may become unwell and why various systems relating to mood, perception and cognition have evolved over the aeons of time, and how such traits and systems develop in an individual over the course of their lifetime. The interrelatedness of so called biological, social and psychological factors should also be developed.
What are the most important concepts in Evolutionary Psychiatry everyone should know, let’s say your personal top 5?
In no particular order:
1) Tinbergen’s famous four questions:
1. What is the mechanism?
2. How does it develop in an individual?
3. What is its adaptive significance?
4. What is its evolutionary history?
2) Randolph Nesse’s Six Evolutionary Reasons why Bodies/Minds are Vulnerable to Disease
Which can also be grouped into three pairs, with the first two arising because of the slow pace of evolution, the second pair arising because of the imperfect nature of evolution and the last pair arising because of the fact that evolution is not interested in our happiness or well-being and that symptoms, while unpleasant, do not always indicate disease or disorder.
Mismatch: our bodies are unprepared to cope with modern environments.
Infection: bacteria and viruses evolve faster than we do.
Constraints: there are some things that natural selection just can’t do.
Trade-offs: everything in the body has advantages and disadvantages.
Reproduction: natural selection maximizes reproduction, not health.
Defensive responses: responses such as pain and anxiety are useful in the face of threats.
3) Environments of evolutionary adaptedness (EEAs).
For well over 95% of our existence as a species (that’s maybe 250,000 years) we lived in small groups of 50-150 closely related people who spent their days together living communally, hunting and gathering.
The development of agriculture and the emergence of towns and cities from a mere 10,000 years ago was followed by rapid technological and societal developments, leading up to the industrial revolution of just two centuries ago, still more rapid and intense urbanization and more recent developments such as IT, social media and artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, in contrast to these recent rapid and dramatic technological, societal and cultural developments, our evolution as a species has been slow and we thus find ourselves in many modern settings (especially in so-called WEIRD societies, i.e. Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) where there is a clear mismatch between our evolved bodies, brains and general capacities and modern environments.
4) Nesse’s SOCIAL system
Allowing a truly biopsychosocial view of an individual and their health:
The letters indicate the individual’s Social situation, Occupational status, Children and family, Income, Abilities and Love.
5) Troisi’s GOAL system
Another useful approach to assessment in psychiatry that is informed by an evolutionary perspective and ethology principles:
Give less weight to symptoms; Observe actual behaviour; Assess functional capacities; Leave your office (to observe patients’ behaviour in their natural environment).
So how can we apply these principles in everyday clinical practice and how will they help us to better treat our patients and support their families?
As I mentioned from the outset, adopting an evolutionary perspective prompts us as clinicians to think as engineers as well as mechanics, asking why we become unwell in the ways we do and what underlying evolved systems are affected when we do become unwell.
The evolutionary perspective also helps us avoid falling into the trap of attempting to categorically define mental illness categories and instead to acknowledge the often times blurred boundaries between normal mental health, ‘helpful’ symptoms and mental illness.
For conditions such as ADHD and problems relating to alcohol and substance use, the concept of environmental mismatch is potentially important. So perhaps children who manifest features of ADHD are actually suffering because they have evolved to wander freely in open settings where activity and adventure are rewarded, but when constrained within modern classroom settings they are perceived as having a disorder. This perspective has implications for how childhood education is delivered.
Regarding alcohol, we have long evolved tastes and abilities to metabolise the small amounts of alcohol contained in highly calorific ripe fruit. However, when some of us partake of the novel and highly potent distilled alcohol of recent civilization, our natural reward systems may be ‘highjacked’ and we may develop alcohol use disorders. This perspective has potential to help destigmatize those struggling with addictions and it also has obvious public health implications for access to and availability of alcohol.
In psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia it appears that the problems arise in cognitive domains such as language and social cognition, the very capacities so highly developed in our species, the very capacities that make us human.
For mood disorders the evolutionary perspective prompts us to ask questions about normal evolved underlying motivating systems, which Randolph Nesse informally refers to as our ‘moodostat’ systems. For example, in times of threat, conflict or loss it may be helpful to become mildly depressed, withdrawn, avoidant of conflict with a superior adversary and more objectively thoughtful. When this system goes into overdrive we are at risk of becoming clinically depressed, a state that does not confer any benefits. In contrast, when we encounter opportunities in life it can be helpful to throw ourselves at them with bursts of enthusiasm and optimism – when this system goes into pathological overdrive we are at risk of developing a manic mood state, which again is not beneficial. An evolutionary approach to mood disorders suggests that the normal ‘moodostat’ system is overly sensitive and overly responsive in those with mood disorders. Importantly, the evolutionary perspective is not inconsistent with standard psychopharmacological approaches, designed as they are to disrupt excessive mood changes and overly sensitive systems.
For disorders relating to ageing, such as dementia and many medical conditions, the evolutionary view brings new perspectives by highlighting concepts such as antagonistic pleiotropy of genes (whereby certain genes may have benefits when we are younger but can become deleterious as we get older) and the grandmother hypothesis. The latter concept relates to the prolonged post-menopausal lifespan of humans, thus giving us time to look after grandchildren and further generations of offspring and thereby benefiting our own genes, but also leaving us open to the vagaries of a prolonged life and the ageing process.
For panic and anxiety disorders there is the concept of the ‘smoke alarm’ theory, again developed by Randolph Nesse. The cost of heightened anxiety and panic in our ancestral environments was tiny in comparison to the risk of not being anxious and thus alert to the real-life threatening dangers of those settings. In many modern environments, however, much of the anxiety and panic we experience is unnecessary and yet very distressing and disabling. Highlighting to patients how anxiety and panic may indicate overactive threat detection or smoke alarm systems can be very powerful in a psychotherapeutic context. Furthermore, this approach is consistent with SSRI treatment of disabling, distressing and useless anxiety symptoms, thus disrupting overactive and potentially harmful systems, akin to using analgesia or anti-inflammatories in disrupting endogenous ‘protective’ systems that can become self-destructive.
And then we have life history theory. Our early environments and relationships combined with innate coping strategies can lead some to develop either slow or fast life history strategies. Impulsivity and lack of trust are examples of fast life history strategies that may present in clinical practice as maladaptive personality traits. Again, this evolutionary perspective has a destigmatizing effect and potential implications for psychotherapy. This theory has been developed by the German evolutionary psychiatrist Martin Brune.
For eating disorders, Riadh Abed has developed a theory on how intra-sexual competition may lead to a pursuit of thinness that goes into pathological overdrive in anorexia and bulimia nervosa.
With these examples in mind, we can see how the evolutionary perspective has potential to help us in conceptualizing diagnosis. We can better help our patients in psychotherapy, in explaining mental illness to patients and families and in destigmatizing mental illness.
The evolutionary perspective can also help inform standard psychopharmacological treatments, public health policy and how education is delivered.
What implications does Evolutionary Psychiatry have for clinical, academic and research fields in Psychiatry?
The evolutionary perspective in clinical psychiatry has the potential to greatly enhance and actually replace the currently existing biopsychosocial model, with treatment implications for our patients. The evolutionary perspective encourages the asking of Tinbergen’s four questions when we are considering traits and systems and this has led to further principles being developed, such as Randolph Nesse’s six reasons as to why we get sick. Nesse’s SOCIAL system and the GOAL system defined by Alfonso Troisi also illustrate how evolutionary thinking can prompt us to greatly broaden our assessment and diagnostic processes and better develop our treatment and prevention strategies.
Along with our everyday clinical work, the evolutionary perspective also helps us to think more broadly about mental health and illness at a scientific level. The evolutionary process thus helps explain why the boundaries between mental illness and mental health are sometimes blurred.
The evolutionary perspective when applied to psychiatric genetics helps us make more sense of why diagnosis in psychiatry is much more complicated and nuanced than defining simple categories based on individual genes or groups of genes, but that is a discussion for another day.
Clinical research questions are also likely to be much better framed when taking into account the evolutionary perspective and, of course, evolutionary perspectives must be underpinned by researchable questions to help us avoid developing ‘just so’ theories whereby vaguely evolutionary concepts are used loosely and potentially inappropriately.
As a medical teacher, I also realise the importance of informing future generations of doctors, along with a wider societal need for education on evolution. So I deliver a course of lectures for my final year medical students and, inspired by my UK colleagues, we have established an Evolution and Psychiatry Special Interest Group with the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland – I would encourage all to join our existing groups in Ireland and the UK, to join the World Psychiatric Association Section on Evolutionary Psychiatry and to consider establish your own national level groups.
How does the evolutionary perspective apply to the environment?
The Oxford English Dictionary gives eight different definitions for ‘environment’ or ‘the environment’, relating to areas such as sociology, biology, phonetics, computing and art.
When preceded by the word ‘the’, it is defined as ‘The natural world or physical surroundings in general, either as a whole or within a particular geographical area, esp. as affected by human activity’.
Other definitions within the Oxford English Dictionary include:
‘The physical surroundings or conditions in which a person or other organism lives, develops, etc., or in which a thing exists; the external conditions in general affecting the life, existence, or properties of an organism or object’.
‘The social, political, or cultural circumstances in which a person lives, esp. with respect to their effect on behaviour, attitudes, etc.; (with modifying word) a particular set of such circumstances’.
From biologyonline.com I found this definition:
What does environment mean? If you mean physical environment, then it is defined as the surrounding conditions and elements with which a living thing interacts with. However, apart from the physical, there are other types of elements that make up an environment. They are the chemical and biological attributes. Thus, an environment contains all biotic and abiotic factors that have a role in the survival, evolution, and development of the organism occupying it. A related term “environ” is defined as “to surround” or “to enclose”. The scope of the environment varies — from the tiniest, “micro” scale to the largest, global scale.
So the terms ‘environment’ and ‘the environment’ are very broad.
My own approach is to think of the environment in which we live in broad, global ‘macro’ and more local and individualized ‘micro’ terms, while also taking into consideration physical, biological, social and cultural aspects.
So far, I have talked about how the evolutionary perspective has such potential in clinical medicine, psychiatry, genetics and in formulating research questions.
Now I will attempt to demonstrate the overlap between the perspectives of evolutionary psychiatry and environmental perspectives.
And I will remind you of the main evolutionary reasons for both mental and physical illness:
To begin with, let us look at our current environments, first at local or ‘micro’ levels and then at wider ‘macro’ levels.
Current everyday individual environments for people (especially those of us living in so called WEIRD societies) are vastly different from any potential environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) that we can imagine. A major part of our success as a species is our adaptability and ingenuity, enabling us to live in practically every geographical and climatic environment on earth, from the freezing poles to deserts, jungles and, increasingly, modern cities.
The differences between EEAs and modern environments leads to multiple areas of evolutionary ‘mismatch’, one of the six main evolutionary reasons for mental and physical illness as outlined earlier.
However, with this adaptability comes multiple costs. On the other hand, life in historic EEAs or modern hunter-gatherer societies is far from comfortable or ideal and I am not for a moment advocating ‘return to nature’.
In various historic EEAs and in modern hunter-gatherer societies, people lived in large closely bonded groups of related individuals, in harsh and dangerous environments, who did everything together and rarely had contact with outsiders. In contrast, in modern social environments we tend to live in smaller groups or even alone, with much less contact with family. Our domestic environments are generally more comfortable but potentially more isolating. This difference contributes to the social isolation and loneliness seen in modern environments, and we know that loneliness is associated with poor outcomes in terms of physical, mental and cognitive health.
In the EEA setting, individuals of all age groups tended to live together and there appears to be more egalitarianism in modern hunter-gatherer societies. In contrast, we in modern environments tend to spend more of our time with people of a similar age, with similar interests and similar social backgrounds, a phenomenon known as ‘horizontalism’. For example, mixed age play and experiential learning is the norm in modern hunter-gatherer societies, in contrast to the highly structured educational environments. This has implications for how we conceptualize and manage ADHD and learning and behavioural difficulties in modern classroom settings.
For conditions such as schizophrenia, we know that prevalence rates are higher in urban settings and have been demonstrated to be related to increasing distance from green spaces. While ‘urban drift’ and other phenomena may be at play here, the stressful nature of modern inner city environments combining poverty, crime, cramped living spaces and widespread drug use cannot be overstated. In fact, at a recent meeting of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland Professor Robin Murray, while giving a talk on social determinants of psychotic illness, commented that living in inner city London areas such as Lambeth is in itself ‘psychotogenic’.
Access to cheap and plentiful calorific foods taps into ‘primitive’ tastes that would be ‘adaptive’ in EEA settings, leading to conditions such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers.
Likewise, access to high potency alcohol and synthetic drugs is a novel challenge.
Other areas worthy of exploration include exercise levels, the difference between ‘appropriate’ and ‘adaptive’ fears of EEAs versus the phobias of modern environments, our relative lack of fear of modern dangers such as cars and electric sockets, the highly structured days and weeks of modern living and possible differences between EEAs and modern environments, in tolerance and support for people who are ‘different’ or mentally unwell.
Regarding other physical illnesses, we have modern problems with zoonoses and pandemics because of modern environments, while historic evolutionary ‘trade-offs’ such as sickle cell disease may lose their advantages in our globalized world e.g. due to migration.
I could go on and on with this list, but hopefully you can see how adopting an evolutionary perspective helps expand our thinking on these areas of the environment and mental health and illness.
That is excellent, thinking about how the environment shapes our mental health and illness seems vital but are there ways we can harness the environment for treatment?
Combining evolutionary psychiatry perspectives with the environmental should also help guide multiple levels of research and intervention, aimed at addressing problems in modern ‘micro’ social environments and broader ‘macro’ environmental areas. In other words, implementing changes at the primary and secondary prevention levels.
I will conclude by listing some potential areas where this thinking can be applied to help improve prevention and treatment of both mental and physical illness.
More thoughtful urban planning with an increased emphasis on access to green spaces, more community orientated ‘communal’ living and the promotion of ‘biophilia’ are all likely to generally enhance health and well-being.
Likewise, practical measures to address loneliness, especially in older people (such as befriending, daycare facilities, etc.) is likely to help address multiple conditions such as depression, anxiety disorders, dementia and various physical health conditions.
Improving levels of intergenerational living and cohesion is likely to have benefits for all involved.
Addressing the pricing, advertising and access to alcohol, drugs and certain food types is also likely to yield significant mental and physical health benefits at the individual and population level.
‘Prescribing’ exercise and ‘social prescribing’ generally are also likely to be highly beneficial for individuals and for population health generally, with limited associated costs.
Green Care & Green Psychiatry
‘Green care in psychiatry’ is a very welcome development that should help to draw together many of these areas and you can read more about this in the 2021 British Journal of Psychiatry article by Sharon Cuthbert, who cites ‘psychoevolutionary’ concepts such as Ulrich’s stress recovery model and research which has shown improved recovery from surgery in natural settings, supported by evidence of reduced cortisol levels (Ulrich et al., 1991). Green space is usually regarded as part of the public health domain but it also appears to have a positive influence of mental health, reducing levels of depression and anxiety (Beyer et al., 2014; Cohen-Cline et al., 2015; de Vries et al., 2018)
Engagement with natural environments is associated with improved health and well-being in the general population which has implications for mental healthcare. It has been shown at least 2 hours spent in natural environments per week is enough to register associated better health and well-being (White et al., 2019).
Mechanisms are theoretically plausible and are beginning to be tested in controlled settings. These involve a attentional shifts, promoting curiosity and interest, improving access to social networks, group co-operation and physical activity (Beyer et al., 2014; Dales & Cakmak, 2016). Furthermore, fMRI has demonstrated natural soundscapes capture attention, reduce distraction and increase parasympathetic activity (Gould van Praag et al., 2017)
The benefits of exposure to green spaces include increased well-being, better social capital, improves pregnancy outcomes and reduced mortality (World Health Organization. Urban Green Spaces and Health: A Review of Evidence. WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2016.)
Particularly relevant for psychiatrists is closing the mortality gap for patients with severe and enduring mental illnesses. This is supported by small trials demonstrating the feasibility of outdoor activity such as on waist measurement when added to standard care with antipsychotics in schizophrenia. (Ascencio, 2019). This cohort is among the most vulnerable and deprived and may not be able to regularly and independently access green spaces. Therefore targeted interventions are required as part of multimodal biopsychosocial treatment.
Currently green care is based on complex interventions dependent on variable third-party provision. Current studies do not have enough power or quality to demonstrate significant changes and effects, particularly for specific groups. However, reviews of the literature rarely report negative findings (Masterton et al., 2020) and a recent study showed equivalence of nature-based therapy with CBT in reducing symptoms, greater wellbeing and less burnout over a year (Stigsdotter et al., 2018). Further evidence for anxiety, stress-related and PTSD symptoms is in it’s early stages and shows encouraging results (Poulson et al., 2016; Westlund, 2015).
In the UK, for every £1 spent on Wildlife Trusts projects for those with mental illness had a return of £6.80 (Bagnall et al., 2019).
Green care can be part of a psychiatrist’s toolkit and essential for good psychiatric practice allowing to be ‘robustly prescribable’ (Buckley & Brough, 2017). Social prescribing of this sort offers a route for formalised interventions but requires more research in specific groups to be universally recommended.
Biophilia
Likewise, there is much to learn from this exploration by Giuseppe Barbiero and Rita Berto of the concept of biophilia or ‘love of life (and nature)’ as an evolved biological trait.
“Biophilia is a human personality trait described initially by Eric Fromm and later by E.O. Wilson, both of who agree that biophilia has a biological basis and that it is fundamental to develop harmonious relationships between humans and the biosphere.”
The psychological orientation by Fromm (1964) of “being attracted to all that is live and vital” assumes an ontological perspective, whereas Wilson (1986) takes a phylogenetic perspective and describes traits of evolutionary adaptation in his definition that allow us to “develop a mental link with the living world and nature”.
The authors argue the case for biophilia representing an evolutionary advantage for becoming emotionally affiliated with their environment (Kellert, 1997). Biophilia has the four characteristics that are typically required for a ‘temperament trait’: 1) Present since early childhood, 2) Has a counterpart in animals 3) Determined by innate biological mechanisms and 4) Is subject to changes caused by maturation and individual-specific genotype-environment interaction (Strelau, 1998).
“Natural selection should have favored individuals who were motivated to explore and settle in environments likely to afford the necessities of life but to avoid environments with poorer resources or posing higher risks” (Orians and Heerwagen, 1992, p. 557)
An individual’s response to Nature seems to be dose-dependent (Kaplan & Berman, 2017), with negative studies demonstrating detrimental effects on both mental and physical health when apart from Nature (Ulrich, 1993; Frumkin, 2001; Schultz et al., 2004). Other studies observe that even brief (15 min) exposure to Nature offers visible psychophysiological benefits (Mayer et al., 2009; Mackay and Neill, 2010; Ryan et al., 2010; Nisbet and Zelenski, 2011), with the minimum threshold of exposure quantified to 2 hours per week offering consistently higher levels of health and wellbeing compared to no exposure (White et al., 2019).
Although the sense of affiliation with Nature emerges early in childhood (Kahn & Kellert, 2002), more than 50% of the world’s children have a limited access to Nature (Clements, 2004), with artificial environments and low biodiversity (Turner et al., 2004). Children have thus increasingly used devices and screens to replace Nature as a playing and learning space (Pergams & Zaradic, 2006; Ballouard et al., 2011; Soga & Gaston, 2016). This has had a negative impact on their health and wellbeing (Samborski, 2010), leading to higher risk of obesity (Wolch et al., 2011; Halonen et al., 2014) and decreased ability for problem solving and risk assessment (Kuo & Taylor, 2004).
“Our sporadic encounters with Nature are no longer enough to stimulate our biophilia, which tends to atrophy” (Barbiero, 2011).
By 2050, 75% of the population will live in cities (Worldbank, 2019), thus raising the importance of creating urban green spaces with high biodiversity. Biophilic design has been suggested as a way to meet this need (Kellert et al., 2008), inspiring the formation of a Biophilic Quality Index (BQI; Berto & Barbiero, 2017) which has been recently applied to the redevelopment of a primary school in Gressoney-La-Trinité, Italy.
Mismatch Reduction
Many of the measures outlined here can, in evolutionary terms, be seen to reduce ‘mismatch’ between EEAs and modern social environments and the whole idea of ‘mismatch reduction therapy’ is currently being explored by my colleague Dr Gurjot Brar.
At the secondary level of treatment for established illness, better design of hospital environments and more involvement of families in care planning are also likely to lead to better care.
Macro Environmental Levels - Bigger Picture
Finally, the evolutionary perspective has much to offer at ‘macro’ environmental levels.
Climate change is an active threat to current and future cohorts of humanity, with differential impacts in certain regions.
Concern regarding the future of our climate and the globe are real and appropriate anxieties and are especially evident in younger people.
As a species, we are hardwired to be on the lookout for existential threats. Climate related anxiety is thus ‘appropriate’ in evolutionary terms and can only be addressed by clear messaging on the realities of climate change, the debunking of misinformation and the establishment of intergovernmental top-down policies and strategies. Anxiety around climate change is not, unfortunately, a ‘false alarm’ signal.
Globalization is another reality of our times and this is associated with movements of people between countries for economic reasons. Migration also occurs due to diverse reasons such as wars, persecution, famine and climate change.
These related phenomena of globalization and migration lead to opportunities but also problems that are unique to modern human societies. Those who move may find themselves in stressful and alien environments that impact on their mental health and well-being. ‘Native’ populations experiencing high levels of inward migration may feel threatened by perceived changes in their societies.
Adopting an evolutionary perspective can again be helpful here, at population and individual levels. Along with deep rooted fears of existential threat, we also have deep rooted fears and suspicions of those who are ‘other’ to us, and this manifests in ‘ingroup-outgroup’ thinking and behaviour and potential for mental illness (such as paranoia and psychosis) and overt and systemic racism.
In our increasingly globalised world, the evolutionary perspective again has much to offer us, primarily in highlighting how our shared evolutionary history means that we as a species have much more in common than we can even imagine.
If you enjoyed this article and would like to discover more about Evolutionary Psychiatry please consider:
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visiting the webpage of the Evolution and Psychiatry Special Interest Group within the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland
visiting the webpage of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group within the Royal College of Psychiatrists
exploring a Youtube playlist on curated presentations by the Evolution and Psychiatry Special Interest Group within the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland
exploring the Youtube page of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group within the Royal College of Psychiatrists
exploring the Evolving Psychiatry podcast