GEORGE VAILLANT

Dr. George Vaillant was born in New York, New York on June 16, 1934. He 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. 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. 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, the Burlingame Award from The Institute for Living, and the Jellinek Award for research in alcoholism. Most recently he has twice received research prizes from the International Psychogeriatric Society. He is the author of Aging Well (2002), Triumphs of Experience (2012), and The Natural History of Alcoholism (1983). His book, Adaptation to Life (1977), is a classic text in the study of adult development.