Mental disorders are a real scourge for our species. But why is there so much mental suffering in human life?

Part of the reason is that emotional states such as anxiety, bad mood, and grief have been preserved and shaped by natural selection because they are useful. True, up to a certain limit.

Fear helps us avoid danger - but at the cost of inevitable false alarms. Despondency allows you not to waste energy on the pursuit of the unrealizable, but often develops into pathological depression. Other mental disorders, such as drug or alcohol addiction or anorexia, arise from a mismatch between the ancient settings of our body and the modern environment. There are strong evolutionary reasons for both sexual disorders and the persistence of schizophrenia genes.

Based on illustrative cases from his own clinical practice and the discoveries of evolutionary biology, Dr. Randolph Nessie not only answers the question of why natural selection has formed in humans such a fragile psyche, but also tries to outline ways to alleviate this suffering, taking into account personal circumstances and individual characteristics.

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