GEORGE E. VAILLANT, M.D. United States
Dr. Vaillant is a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Vaillant has spent his research career charting adult development and the recovery process of schizophrenia, heroin addiction, alcoholism, and personality disorder. He spent 35 years as Director of the Study of Adult Development at the Harvard University Health Service. The study has prospectively charted the lives of 824 men and women for almost 70 years. His published works include Adaptation to Life, 1977, The Wisdom of The Ego, 1993, The Natural History of Alcoholism-Revisited, 1995, and Aging Well, 2002,Spiritual Evolution, 2008 and Triumphs of Experience, 2012
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Vaillant did his residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and completed his psychoanalytic training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. He has been a Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, is a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists and a founding member of Positive Psychology. A major focus of his work in the past has been individual adult development; more recently he has been interested in positive emotions and their relationship to community development. He is a past Class A trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous and is currently on the Steering Committee of Positive Psychology.
Dr. Vaillant has received the Foundations Fund Prize for Research in Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association, the Strecker Award from The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, and the Jellinek Award for research in alcoholism. Most recently he received The Distinguished Service Award from the American Psychiatric Association.
Presentation Topic
Teaching Non-Alcoholic Professionals the Language of Heart
An empirical 60 year follow up of how the 12 Steps of AA and group membership render AA the most effective treatment modality for drug addiction.