This volume explores and challenges the assumption that behavioral proclivities and pathologies are directly traceable to experience, exploring historical and cultural perspectives on behavioral genetics and evolutionary biology, and challenging the clinical utility of the therapeutic narrative.

"This is an evolutionarily sophisticated book manuscript that I found very valuable."

-- John Alcock, Emeritus Professor, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University

"This book is a refreshing counterpoint to the classical and still fashionable reliance on narrative biographical formulations in clinical psychiatry, that endure despite a century of countervailing behavioral neuroscience and genetics evidence. The author manages to entertain while tackling this complex topic."

--Albert HC Wong, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Canada

"This was a difficult book for this clinical psychologist to read. Goldstein takes the view that human psychology is due primarily to genetic factors. What follows is a detailed explanation that downplays the role of personal experiences typically understood to impact human psychology. Psychotherapy is essentially described as a process that helps patients only in identifying their genetic proclivities and figuring out what to do about them. Readers who cite research supporting at least 50 percent of factors influencing behaviors that are non-heritable encounter a chapter titled "The Missing 50%," which argues that genetic and neurological factors do account for that missing 50 percent but just have not been identified yet. When reading this chapter, this reviewer was reminded of how Sigmund Freud, a neurologist, insisted that neurology would someday account for all aspects of psychology, including the unconscious; the science had just not caught up yet. In terms of providing a solid summary of research showing the genetic influence of behavior, this is an excellent text."

--D. C. Marston, Marston Psychological Services, LLC, CHOICE

"This is an evolutionarily sophisticated book manuscript that I found very valuable."

-- John Alcock, Emeritus Professor, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University

"This book is a refreshing counterpoint to the classical and still fashionable reliance on narrative biographical formulations in clinical psychiatry, that endure despite a century of countervailing behavioral neuroscience and genetics evidence. The author manages to entertain while tackling this complex topic."

--Albert HC Wong, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Canada

"This was a difficult book for this clinical psychologist to read. Goldstein takes the view that human psychology is due primarily to genetic factors. What follows is a detailed explanation that downplays the role of personal experiences typically understood to impact human psychology. Psychotherapy is essentially described as a process that helps patients only in identifying their genetic proclivities and figuring out what to do about them. Readers who cite research supporting at least 50 percent of factors influencing behaviors that are non-heritable encounter a chapter titled "The Missing 50%," which argues that genetic and neurological factors do account for that missing 50 percent but just have not been identified yet. When reading this chapter, this reviewer was reminded of how Sigmund Freud, a neurologist, insisted that neurology would someday account for all aspects of psychology, including the unconscious; the science had just not caught up yet. In terms of providing a solid summary of research showing the genetic influence of behavior, this is an excellent text."

--D. C. Marston, Marston Psychological Services, LLC, CHOICE

Robert G. Goldstein is Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Assistant Attending Psychiatrist at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. He is also a member of the Research Faculty at the DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry, an interdisciplinary research division at Weill Cornell, USA. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA.