George Eman Vaillant (; born June 16, 1934) is an American

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

and

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

and Director of Research for the Department of Psychiatry,

Brigham and Women's Hospital Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is the second largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the largest hospital in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Along with Massachusetts Gener ...

. Vaillant has spent his research career charting adult development and the recovery process of

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...

addiction,

alcoholism Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol (drug), alcohol that results in significant Mental health, mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognize ...

, and

personality disorder Personality disorders (PD) are a class of mental disorders characterized by enduring maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts and deviating from those accepted by the individual's culture ...

. Through 2003, he spent 30 years as Director of the Study of Adult Development at the Harvard University Health Service. The

study Study or studies may refer to: General * Education **Higher education * Clinical trial * Experiment * Observational study * Research * Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning Other * Study (art), a drawing or series of drawi ...

has prospectively charted the lives of 724 men and women for over 60 years.

Biography

George Eman Vaillant's father, George Clapp Vaillant, committed suicide in 1945. George Eman was traumatized by his father's death and thus had deep emotional reasons for being interested in psychiatry. He graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

and

, did his psychiatric residency at the

Massachusetts Mental Health Center The Massachusetts Mental Health Center is a historic psychiatric hospital complex at 75 Fenwood Road in the Longwood medical area of Boston, Massachusetts. The center was founded in 1912 as the Boston Psychopathic Hospital. Its original main ...

and completed his psychoanalytic training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. He has been a Fellow at the

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social a ...

, is a Fellow of the

American College of Psychiatrists The American College of Psychiatrists is an American association of psychiatrists based in Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates ...

and has been an invited speaker and consultant for seminars and workshops throughout the world. A major focus of his work in the past has been to develop ways of studying

defense mechanisms In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism (American English: defense mechanism), is an unconscious psychological operation that functions to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and o ...

empirically; more recently, he has been interested in successful aging and human happiness. In 2008, he took up a supervisory role for psychiatric trainees at St. Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. In June 2009, Joshua Wolf Shenk published an article in the ''

Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' entitled "What Makes Us Happy?" which focused on Vaillant's work in the

Grant Study The Grant Study is part of the Study of Adult Development at Harvard Medical School. It is a 75-year longitudinal study that followed 268 Harvard educated men, the majority of whom were members of the undergraduate classes of 1942, 1943 and 1944. It ...

, a study of 268 men over many decades. Vaillant has been married four times, once to late psychotherapist

Leigh McCullough Leigh McCullough (June 5, 1945 – June 7, 2012) was an American psychotherapist, researcher, educator, and the pioneer of short-term dynamic psychotherapy (STDP). Her treatment model focused on the learned fears of experiencing certain emotions, ...

. He currently lives in California with his current wife, Diane Highumn a psychiatrist and Harvard Medical School graduate, and step-daughter, Zoe.

Awards

Vaillant has received the Foundations Fund Prize for Research in Psychiatry from the

American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 37,000 members are involve ...

, the Strecker Award from The

Pennsylvania Hospital Pennsylvania Hospital is a private, non-profit, 515-bed teaching hospital located in Center City Philadelphia and is part of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Founded on May 11, 1751, by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond, Pennsylv ...

, the Burlingame Award from The Institute for Living, and the Jellinek Award for research on

. In 1995 he received the research prize of the International Psychogeriatric Society.

Editorial board membership

Vaillant sits on the Honorary International Advisory Board of the

Mens Sana Monographs The ''Mens Sana Monographs'' is a peer-reviewed open-access monographic series of mental and physical medicine. It is published by Medknow Publications on behalf of the Mens Sana Research Foundation. Every volume is also published as a book, wit ...

. He joined the board of trustees of

Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid fellowship of alcoholics dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually-inclined Twelve Step program. Following its Twelve Traditions, AA is non-professi ...

as a Class A (non-alcoholic) trustee in 1998.

Books

*Vaillant, GE (1977), ''Adaptation to Life'', Boston, MA, Little, Brown, 1977 (also Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Hardcover, 396pp ) lso German, Korean and Chinese translationsbr>Reprinted with a new preface in 1995 by Harvard University Press
Cambridge, MA) *Vaillant, GE (1983), ''Natural History of Alcoholism'', Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press *Vaillant, GE (1992), ''Ego Mechanisms of Defense: A Guide for Clinicians and Researchers'', Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Press *Vaillant, GE (1993), ''The Wisdom of the Ego'', Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, *Vaillant, GE (1995), '' The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited'', Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, lso (Brazilian) Portuguese translation*Vaillant, GE (2002), ''Aging Well'', Boston, Little Brown, *Vaillant, GE (2008), ''Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith'', Broadway Books, *Vaillant, GE (2012), ''Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study'', Belknap Press, *Vaillant, GE (2017), ''Heaven on My Mind: Using the Harvard Grant Study of Adult Development to Explore the Value of the Prospection of Life After Death'', Nova Science Publishers, Inc.,

Biography

Awards

Editorial board membership

Books

See also

References

Further reading