ABSTRACT
The evolutionary approach helps to answer three fundamental questions about humanity that go to the heart of professional helping and clinical practice: First, what and who are we as human beings – that is, what is human nature or species ‘normality’?; second, how and why do humans develop and/or behave in less than optimal ways – that is, what can evolution tell us about the causes of suffering and psychopathology?; and, third, what can professional helpers and psychotherapists do to ameliorate or even ‘cure’ the suffering of heart and mind? All the chapters in this book address each of these questions, although individual authors differ in their weighting of the questions and their particular theoretical and clinical emphases.
