Exploring the Mind | How Should We Think About Mental Illness?

When

Monday February 10, 2025: 6:00pm to 7:30pm  Add to Calendar /   Add to Google Calendar

Where

Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Description

Since 1980, the official system for how we diagnose mental illness has remained largely unchanged. That’s close to 50 years without significant reconsideration of how we should conceptualize a major domain of medicine. In particular, the diagnostic system we currently have views mental disorders as something you either have or don’t, and that are distinct from each other. Research doesn’t support this view. This talk will introduce a modern perspective on the structure and organization of mental illness based on mathematical modeling of patterns of diagnoses and symptoms and show how it does a better job of explaining things like genetics, responses to treatments, and links to personality.

Aidan Wright, PhD is a Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry and the Phil F Jenkins Professor in Depression in the Eisenberg Family Depression Center at the University of Michigan. Broadly, Dr. Wright’s work is motivated by trying to answer how who we are (our personality) is related to the problems we have (psychopathology or mental illness). Much of his work uses computational methods to understand the structure of psychopathology, or how we should organize our models of mental illness. Other work focuses on studying people intensively in daily life to understand when and under what conditions the symptoms of mental illness express themselves.

This event is in partnership with the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan.

The Library intends to provide a live stream of this event pending the presenter's permission. Please check back closer to the event for additional updates.