reading – DIANAVERSE

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings by Randy Nesse examines emotions and mental illness from an evolutionary psychology perspective. I was really excited about reading this book because Nesse’s Why We Get Sick had a huge impact on me when I read it as an undergrad, encouraging me to think of the intersection between health psychology and evolutionary psychology. Here is a good primer on Darwinian Medicine from around that time.

Last month I had this discussion on free will versus determinism with Gena Gorlin, a clinical psychologist who expressed a great deal of skepticism about an evolutionary approach to clinical psychology and mental health in our conversation. I was reminded that, in the therapeutic community, an evolutionary perspective is often considered wrongheaded, counterproductive and offensive to human dignity.

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings is essential reading for anyone interested in how an evolutionary perspective improves our thinking about mental health. And skeptics will appreciate that it’s honest about stuff we really don’t understand.

Here are 10 ideas from Good Reasons for Bad Feelings.