Evolutionary Clinical Psychology

Abstract

Evolutionary psychology is the study of normal and universal human nature – how our modern minds are the result of our species' evolutionary history. Evolutionary clinical psychology or evolutionary psychopathology is a specific area of research within evolutionary psychology that specifically investigates how our mental health and mental disorder have evolved or what mental mechanisms are not functioning. Evolutionary theory has offered important contributions to the definition of psychopathology, especially through Wakefield's harmful dysfunction analysis, where psychopathology is defined based on an analysis of a value-laden consideration of undesirability, as well as a more objective description of mechanism dysfunction. Evolutionary approaches to etiology are becoming more important, as clinical psychology comes to terms with the fact that we currently are not able to explain how any of the mental disorders develop. Specific diagnostic categories have been addressed from an evolutionary perspective – but a limitation to all of this work is a poor understanding of psychopathology in the diagnostic manuals, a lack of well-defined phenotypes, and too much infighting between competing explanations. Although there are treatment suggestions, interventions, and methods based on evolutionary theory, there is a major need for more research on the efficacy of such recommendations and methods. Evolutionary clinical psychology offers an integrative meta-theory, but such an approach will have consequences for how we understand mental disorders, and research within this paradigm promises to provide us with tools to prevent and treat mental disorder with greater insight.