Paperback: ISBN 10: 0578601672 ISBN 13: 978-0578601670
A new psychiatric treatment delivered within a new theory of mind
This book is written from an evolutionary point of view for a general audience interested in what motivates human nature. The psychiatrist author humanizes severe mental illnesses by demonstrating that the inner experience of those conditions can be interpreted as “emotional fossils,” which reveal the deep evolution of normally functioning emotions and motivations. The power of this treatment of the persistent stigma of mental illness lies in the new theory of human mind evolution that emerges, which is every bit as significant today as Charles Darwin’s The Descent Of Man when it was published in 1871.
Drawing on the work of developmental psychologist, Michael Tomasello (Becoming Human, 2019), the thesis of the book is that, prior to our own species, the crucial evolutionary adaptation during the six million years of human evolution was the coordination of divided labor, i.e., teamwork. To permit the close engagement necessary to reap the benefits of teamwork, primate dominance hierarchies declined, and a new authority of justice arose. Over millions of years, in the course of refining the capacity for teamwork, unique collective motivations evolved to predominate social behavior. This heritage is glaringly reflected in the magnitude of our shared languages and cultures held together by the authority of norms and laws.
The manic phase of bipolar disorder reveals Darwin's mechanism of sexual selection, recently reasserted by Richard Prum (Evolution of Beauty, 2017). In our own 300,000-year-old species, sexual selection superimposed upon established collective instincts a motivation to seek the pleasure of social esteem. This modern human ambition is referred to by psychiatrists as narcissism, and vanity in biblical texts. Problematic in our Homo sapiens species has been the awakening within individuals of long dormant primate impulses to dominate as an instrument of vanity.
Emotional Fossils is a closely reasoned, scientifically documented argument that is continuously leavened by fresh ideas, vivid clinical vignettes, and even flights of imagination into narratives of the inner emotional life of the species of our ancient human ancestors. Despite its brevity, this book is the most complete and satisfying answer you will ever read to the question, “What makes us tick?”
Review
In this breathtakingly original book, John Wylie proposes a new theory of mind, one that reconciles evolutionary biology with psychodynamics. This is a great endeavor of the intellect and a deep review of consciousness itself.
-Andrew Solomon (Noonday Demon and Far from the Tree)
Emotional Fossils is fascinating; an educated and educating journey into the evolution of mental illness. I have been mesmerized by this book and Dr. Wylie's thesis. A must read for anyone dealing with mental illness on any level: patient, doctor or researcher.
-Jessie Close (Co-founder, Bring Change to Mind)
A psychiatrist finds an evolutionary explanation for common mental illnesses.
In this science book, Wylie (Diagnosing and Treating Mental Illness, 2012) draws on Darwinian evolutionary theory to present a new framework for understanding the origins of depression, bipolar disorder, and other such conditions. . . Wylie's goal in developing his theory is twofold: Understanding the causes of mental illness makes it easier to treat, and this knowledge allows the general public to react with empathy instead of fear. The author's empathy for his patients is evident throughout these pages, as he recounts cases in (anonymized) detail without delving into sensationalism or objectifying the people he has treated. Wylie's interpretation of behavioral anomalies in the context of "a decisive shift in natural selection's target from fitness of individuals to productivity of relationships among individuals in which the language of expressed emotions plays the central role" seems plausible, particularly as he cites evolutionary biologists, including E.O. Wilson and Richard Prum, in the development of his case. The book is well written, with frequently vibrant prose ("white-hot caldrons of emotion radiating inner fragments of the nature of our nature"), and it is fairly easy for nonscientist readers to follow. The work's brevity is not a shortcoming, as Wylie makes a fully developed argument and presents evidence without becoming repetitive. The volume's central thesis is outside the norms of current psychiatric teachings, but the author makes a solid case for why it is plausible and how it can change methods of treating and understanding metal illnesses, delivering a challenge to orthodoxy that is worth considering and exploring further.
A singular approach to understanding mental disorders that is thoughtfully presented and offers new possibilities.
- Kirkus Reviews
From the Author
"Emotional Fossils: Mental Illness and Human Evolution" is the culmination of a long career of iconoclastic thinking as a psychiatrist. Having studied existential philosophers as an undergraduate, I started out in surgery and switched to psychiatry in the Freudian era when no one talked about the brain. I began my psychiatric career in a maximum-security prison where I read Darwin's treatises, and initiated my project of integrating Darwin and Freud.
Then, in 1987, when the Prozac revolution made psychiatric illnesses a"chemical imbalance"and "all in the genes," the perspective of mind, at least with respect to major mental illnesses, disappeared into the soup of the brain. Now it is thirty years later and no brain mechanisms have been discovered for any of the major mental illnesses.
My proposals in this essay: 1. The primary pathology in mental illness occurs in the mind; the brain changes are secondary compensations and effects. 2. The major mental illnesses are the breakdown of key normal emotions and motivations that are ancient and can be considered "emotional fossils." 3. The major facts of human evolution, such as upright posture, opposable thumbs, tool making, large brains, and culture were caused by changes in what MOTIVATED ancient humans. 4. Emotional fossils revealed by mental illnesses naturally fit together into a new narrative of human evolution that can be innately understood by anyone. 5. This new understanding of human nature is uplifting and serves as a bridge of empathetic understanding for these long stigmatized afflictions as we realize that they pay the price for our extraordinary capacities.
