George Vaillant

Psychiatrist and one of the pioneers in the study of adult development.

Dr. Vaillant is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Vaillant has spent his research career charting adult development and the recovery process of schizophrenia, heroin addiction, alcoholism, and personality disorder. He has spent the last 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 over 60 years. His published works include Adaptation to Life, 1977, The Wisdom of The Ego, 1993, and The Natural History of Alcoholism – Revisited, 1995. His summary of the lives of men and women from adolescence to age 80, Aging Well, was published by Little, Brown in 2002.