Hunting for function behind disorder (Part 2) | Adam Hunt | Evolving Psychiatry Podcast #44

Trying to explain disorders as functional is tempting, but often misses a critical point: sometimes it is not the disorder itself which is functional, but it is occurring as a by-product of a different adaptive system. In this second part of this special three part series, Adam Hunt explains this common confusion and the steps we can take to solve it.

The article which this episode is based on is available, open access, here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.70010

A summary blog post can be found here: https://www.adamhunt.info/post/the-dcide-framework-published-in-biological-reviews

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. 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 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.