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32 - Psychopathology from an Evolutionary Perspective

from Part VIII - Abnormal Behavior and Evolutionary Psychopathology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

By
William J. Ray
Edited by
Lance Workman ,
Will Reader  and
Jerome H. Barkow
Lance Workman
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Will Reader
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Jerome H. Barkow
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
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Summary

The purpose of this chapter is to consider the manner in which evolutionary perspectives offer an additional level of understanding to the field of psychopathology. This perspective offers both long-term and short-term considerations of psychological difficulties in everyday life. For all organisms, one of the main themes of evolution is the manner in which organisms are in close connection with their environment. It is this close connection that allows for change – including the turning on and off of genetic processes – to take place. In psychopathological disorders, this close connection with both the external and internal environment of the person may be dysfunctional.

When a person loses contact with the current environment and applies strategies that worked perhaps in an earlier time, then unsuccessful adaptation is the result. This lack of connectedness to our environment may take place on both external and internal levels.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior , pp. 395 - 408
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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