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Jordan Smoller is associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Œuvres de Jordan Smoller

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Sexe
male
Nationalité
USA
Professions
psychiatrist
Courte biographie
Dr. Jordan Smoller is Associate Vice Chair of the MGH Department of Psychiatry and Director of Psychiatric Genetics. He is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.  He is Director of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit at the MGH Center for Human Genetics Research and a founding faculty member of the MGH Mood and Anxiety Disorders Institute. Dr. Smoller also serves as co-director of the Genetics and Genomics Unit of the MGH Clinical Research Program. At Harvard Medical School, he is Director of the Translational Genetics and Bioinformatics Program of the Harvard Catalyst.  He is also a Senior Scientist at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.
 
He earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, and MD from Harvard Medical School. After completing his clinical training in psychiatry at McLean Hospital, he earned a doctoral degree in psychiatric and genetic epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health and trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the NIMH Training Program in Psychiatric Genetics.

He is an author of more than 120 scientific articles, book chapters and reviews; the recipient of numerous research awards; and a principal investigator on NIH-funded studies of the genetics of anxiety and the genetics of bipolar disorder, major depression and schizophrenia. Dr. Smoller is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Medical Genetics-B (Neuropsychiatric Genetics) and editor of the volume, Psychiatric Genetics: Applications in Clinical Practice. The focus of Dr. Smoller’s research interests has been the identification of genetic determinants of childhood and adult psychiatric disorders as well as neural phenotypes underlying risk for these disorders. Major research projects include studies examining the phenotypic spectrum of susceptibility genes and the impact of genetic variation on brain structure and function.  Dr. Smoller and colleagues have also been studying pharmacogenetic predictors of treatment response and the ways in which advances in genetics may impact clinical practice in psychiatry.

http://mddscor.bwh.harvard.edu/center...

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This book explores the idea that to fully understand mental illness, we need to start by understanding the normal – what the brain was designed to do. Smoller believes the current model (that defines mental illness based on the abnormal) is contributing to the explosion in cases in recent years, perhaps resulting in treatments that are unnecessary and potentially damaging. Do we really have that many more cases of mental illness now or is it artificially inflated by attributing a deficit or disorder to something that is within the range of normal functioning?

The author is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and serves as a Trustees Endowed Chair in Psychiatric Neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital. Smoller asserts: “The best way to understand the abnormal is to study the normal. Rather than simply starting at the edges and working our way back, our goal should be to illuminate the full and vast distribution of normal. As we fill out the center, we can see its connections to the extremes—how and where the functions of the mind can be perturbed or disrupted.”

The current strategy (focusing on the abnormal) has been pursued for most of the past century. Smoller would like to turn this on its head and instead focus on the normal by asking such questions as: “What were the mind and the brain built to do? How do mental and neural functions develop? How are they organized? By understanding the basic architecture of the mind and the brain and how they make sense of the environment and experiences they encounter, we can begin to see where the dysfunctions are likely to occur and how they emerge from the normal spectrum of human experience.”

He examines the interactions between nature and nurture and argues that both are important – it never has been one OR the other. He provides evidence, cites the results of numerous studies to support his ideas. He emphasizes the promising results of research into brain chemistry and epigenetics.

Dr. Smoller addresses these issues in clear terms, such that it is easily consumable by anyone with a basic level of knowledge in psychiatry. I do believe one should come to the table with an avid interest in the topic – it’s not a book to just pick up and read on the spur of the moment. It requires focused concentration. It is written clearly, logically, and elegantly. I very much enjoyed reading the author’s insights.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
Castlelass | 1 autre critique | Oct 30, 2022 |
Nicely written book, with solid information that doesn't feel like there is an agenda to it(or maybe it is just that the agenda is one I agree with and soi didn't notice anything)
 
Signalé
magerber | 1 autre critique | Feb 22, 2016 |

Statistiques

Œuvres
2
Membres
112
Popularité
#174,306
Évaluation
3.8
Critiques
2
ISBN
5
Langues
1

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