Evolving Psychiatry

Adam Hunt
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Daily

Evolutionary psychiatry offers evolutionary explanations for the range of mental health conditions identified by psychiatry today. The Evolving Psychiatry podcast provides interviews, insights and an introduction to evolutionary psychiatry, with guest appearances from leading academics and psychiatrists.

  1. 4d ago

    Sport's Appeal | Matt Butler & Henry O'Connell | Evolving Psychiatry #58

    Sport, and particularly football, captures billions of people's support. Why are our psychologies so captivated by these games? And could they even be used for improving mental health?The guests today are co-authors on the paper "The people’s game: evolutionary perspectives on the behavioural neuroscience of football fandom".Henry O’Connell is a returning guest: he is a consultant psychiatrist and Clinical Director at HSE Portlaoise, Clinical Professor at the University of Limerick, founding chair of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland's Evolutionary Psychiatry SIG, and now Co-Chair of the WPA Section on Evolutionary Psychiatry. He is also author of Evolution and Psychiatry: Clinical Cases. Matt Butler is the lead author of the key paper of today's episode. He's a Wellcome Doctoral Clinical Research Fellow at King's College London and a specialist registrar in psychiatry at South London & Maudsley hospitals. His PhD is on psilocybin in functional neurological disorder.This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

    59 min

  2. May 31

    Engineering Needed Newton, Psychiatry Needs Darwin | Adam Hunt | Evolving Psychiatry #57

    Cathedrals and bridges could be built before physics was developed, but the limits of engineering eventually hit a wall. This episode considers how the science of physics eventually informed engineering, and the comparison to how evolution could inform psychiatry.Adam Hunt, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Evolution, Mental Health and Behaviour lab at the University of Cambridge. He is also Founding Chair of the Foundation for Evolution and Mental Health, an Executive Committee Member of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Communications Chair for the International Society of Evolution, Medicine and Public Health, and host of the 'Evolving Psychiatry' podcast.This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

    1h 32m

  3. May 24

    Clinical Personality Psychology | Simone Cheli | Evolving Psychiatry #56

    How do clinical psychologists think differently once taking an evolutionary view? How can the evolutionary sciences help in understanding the problems people seek help from therapists for?Simone Cheli, PsyD, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist based in Florence, Italy. He is the founding president of Tages Onlus, a Florence-based clinical, research, and training centre he established in 2014, and an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at St. John's University, Rome. He previously spent fifteen years at the University of Florence working in psycho-oncology and severe mental illness.He is best known for developing Evolutionary Systems Therapy (ESTS), an integrative clinical model that brings together Paul Gilbert's Compassion-Focused Therapy, the metacognitive tradition of Paul Lysaker and Giancarlo Dimaggio, attachment theory, and evolutionary psychopathology. His research focuses on schizotypy, personality disorders, perfectionism, and the dimensional understanding of psychopathology, and he is a member of the HiTOP Consortium.He is the co-editor, with Paul Lysaker, of A Dimensional Approach to Schizotypy: Conceptualization and Treatment (Springer, 2023), and the author of the popular Italian book L'animale che si credeva altro: Guida facile alla psicologia evoluzionistica in sette storie (Fioriti, 2026). He has published over one hundred peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and serves as co-editor of Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session and associate editor of New Ideas in Psychology and Mental Health Science.This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

    1h 8m

  4. May 17

    Overdiagnosis and AI Therapists | Allen Frances | Evolving Psychiatry Podcast #55

    Mental disorder diagnosis has increased rapidly in recent decades, and now with the introduction of AI, possibilities for treatment are changing. Where will AI assistants fit into psychiatry and clinical psychology? Allen Frances, born 1942 in New York City, is Professor and Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine. He trained at Columbia (BA), SUNY Downstate (MD), the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training. He chaired Duke's Department of Psychiatry from 1991 and previously spent two decades at Cornell, where he ran the outpatient department and founded a brief therapy program.He is best known for chairing the DSM-IV Task Force (DSM-IV, 1994; text revision, 2000) and, before that, for writing the personality disorders section of DSM-III under Robert Spitzer. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Personality Disorders and the Journal of Psychiatric Practice.His key publications include Saving Normal (2013), the international bestseller and his manifesto against diagnostic inflation; Essentials of Psychiatric Diagnosis (2013); and Twilight of American Sanity (2017). His August 2025 British Journal of Psychiatry editorial, "Warning: AI chatbots will soon dominate psychotherapy," is his most cited recent work, and he writes a weekly Psychiatric Times series on AI in mental health.This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

    1h 5m

  5. Feb 6

    Problems with Brains(cience) | Adam Hunt | Evolving Psychiatry Podcast Episode #54

    Neuroscience is the flagship science of psychiatry, but hasn't led to the advances expected from it. In this episode, Adam discusses difficulties with neuroscience and possibilities for switching to a paradigm that can actually make progress.Dr Adam Hunt is a researcher in the emerging field of evolutionary psychiatry at the Leverhulme Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge. Since 2019 he has served on the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He also sits on the board of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health. He is the founding chair of the Foundation for Evolution and Mental Health. His PhD thesis entitled ‘Evolving Evolutionary Psychiatry and Explaining Neurodiversity’ received Summa Cumme Laude from the University of Zurich in spring 2024.He has published multiple academic articles in journals such as Biological Reviews, Autism Research and Evolutionary Human Sciences on a range of topics, including how evolutionary psychiatry supports the concept of neurodiversity and how evolutionary theory explains individual differences in cognition and dissolves the distinction between psychopathology and personality. He has lectured and trained psychiatrists and psychotherapists in evolutionary psychiatry. This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

    55 min

  6. Jan 30

    'Just a theory'? | Adam Hunt | Evolving Psychiatry Podcast Episode #53

    Evolutionary theories are indeed... theories. But are they 'just' theories, in the derogatory sense? Or are they something more... In this episode Adam discusses this question.Dr Adam Hunt is a researcher in the emerging field of evolutionary psychiatry at the Leverhulme Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge. Since 2019 he has served on the executive committee of the Evolutionary Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He also sits on the board of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health. He is the founding chair of the Foundation for Evolution and Mental Health. His PhD thesis entitled ‘Evolving Evolutionary Psychiatry and Explaining Neurodiversity’ received Summa Cumme Laude from the University of Zurich in spring 2024.He has published multiple academic articles in journals such as Biological Reviews, Autism Research and Evolutionary Human Sciences on a range of topics, including how evolutionary psychiatry supports the concept of neurodiversity and how evolutionary theory explains individual differences in cognition and dissolves the distinction between psychopathology and personality. He has lectured and trained psychiatrists and psychotherapists in evolutionary psychiatry.This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

    27 min

  7. 10/28/2025

    What IS Depression? | Daniel Nettle | Evolving Psychiatry Podcast #52

    What different explanatory frameworks can make sense of depression? And what are their respective impacts? Daniel Nettle is a behavioural scientist whose work bridges psychology, evolution, and public health. He a researcher in the Evolution and Social Cognition team at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris as well as a Professor at Northumbria University. Much of his most recent research has examined how poverty, inequality, and social environments shape behaviour and mental health. He’s the author several books, including Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile and Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are, as well as a wide range of academic articles and research relating to evolutionary psychiatry, including on schizophrenia, early life stressors, depression and interpretation of different explanatory frameworks of mental disorder. This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

    1h 6m

  8. 10/05/2025

    Reconsidering ADHD | Annie Swanepoel | Evolving Psychiatry Podcast #51

    Evolutionary perspectives on ADHD are often talked about: Annie Swanepoel shares how they affect her practice as a psychiatrist, and what evolutionary perspectives in general mean for the field.Dr Annie Swanepoel is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in North East London NHS Foundation Trust and holds a PhD in Human Physiology. She has played a longstanding role in the evolutionary psychiatry special interest group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, serving on the executive committee for many years, including being editor of the newsletter and finance officer. She has published multiple papers on evolution and ADHD. The paper mentioned in this episode can be found here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/irish-journal-of-psychological-medicine/article/abs/evolutionary-perspectives-on-adhd/59AD1CA265F79F7EF978178361BC8E17 This podcast is financially supported by the Human Ecology Group of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich.

    35 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Evolutionary psychiatry offers evolutionary explanations for the range of mental health conditions identified by psychiatry today. The Evolving Psychiatry podcast provides interviews, insights and an introduction to evolutionary psychiatry, with guest appearances from leading academics and psychiatrists.

Information

  • Creator
    Adam Hunt
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    58
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Adam Hunt
  • Show Website
    Evolving Psychiatry

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