In clinical psychology, we rarely think about the hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution which forged our emotional and cognitive systems. Such evolutionary stories can provide a complimentary narrative to help reframe symptomology, recognise the odd stressors of modern life, highlight strengths behind struggles, and reformulate how mental health problems are interpreted by both clinicians and patients. This workshop shall provide attendees with a grounding in general evolutionary principles for explaining mental health problems, cover specific common symptoms and traits and their evolutionary explanation, and provide discussion and group-work opportunities for workshopping how such explanations might be integrated into clinical sessions. Attendees will leave with an additional tool in their clinical toolkit: the ability to help make sense of mental health struggles in light of our shared evolutionary history.
Fakultät für Psychologie
