George E. Vaillant

At a time when people are living into their tenth decade, the longest longitudinal study of human development ever undertaken offers welcome news for old age: our lives evolve in our later years and often become more fulfilling. Among the surprising findings: people who do well in old age did not necessarily do so well in midlife, and vice versa.

Triumphs of Experience

Adaptation to Life

In a unique series of studies, Harvard University has followed 824 subjects from their teens to old age. Professor George Vaillant now uses these to illustrate the surprising factors involved in reaching happy, healthy old age.

Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Study of Adult Development

Aging Well

One of America's preeminent psychiatrists gives us an exhilarating look at how the mind's defenses work, how they evolve and change, and so, change us. In compelling portraits of obscure and famous lives, Vaillant charts the evolution of the ego's defenses, from the psychopathic to the sublime and from the mundane to the most ingenious.

The Wisdom of the Ego

In this updated version of his landmark study on alcoholism, George Vaillant returns to the same subjects, but with the perspective gained from fifteen years of further follow-up.

The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited

One of America's preeminent psychiatrists draws on his famous Study of Adult Development to give us an exhilarating look at how the mind's defenses work. What we see as the mind's trickery, George Vaillant tells us, is actually healthy. What's more, it can reveal the mind at its most creative and mature, soothing and protecting us in the face of unbearable reality, managing the unmanageable, ordering disorder. And because creativity is so intrinsic to this alchemy of the ego, Vaillant mingles his studies of obscure lives with psychobiographies of famous artists and others--including Florence Nightingale, Sylvia Plath, Anna Freud, and Eugene O'Neill.

Between 1939 and 1942, one of America's leading universities recruited 268 of its healthiest and most promising undergraduates to participate in a revolutionary new study of the human life cycle. George Vaillant, director of this study, took the measure of the Grant Study men. The result was the compelling, provocative classic, Adaptation to Life, which poses fundamental questions about the individual differences in confronting life's stresses.

In an unprecedented series of studies, Harvard Medical School has followed 824 subjects -- men and women, some rich, some poor -- from their teens to old age. Harvard's George Vaillant now uses these studies -- the most complete ever done anywhere in the world -- and the subjects' individual histories to illustrate the factors involved in reaching a happy, healthy old age. He explains precisely why some people turn out to be more resilient than others, the complicated effects of marriage and divorce, negative personality changes, and how to live a more fulfilling, satisfying and rewarding life in the later years. He shows why a person's background has less to do with their eventual happiness than the specific lifestyle choices they make. And he offers step-by-step advice about how each of us can change our lifestyles and age successfully. Sure to be debated on talk shows and in living rooms, Vaillant's definitive and inspiring book is the new classic account of how we live and how we can live better. It will receive massive media attention, and with good reason: we have never seen anything like it, and what it has to tell us will make all the difference in the world.

John Snarey

In this age of working mothers, the role of fathering is often overlooked. This book illuminates the realitites of fathering by presenting the results of a unique empirical study conducted over four decades and covering four generations. Through case studies and data analysis, John Snarey demonstrates that men's care for their families reaps immense and long-lasting benefits - for themselves, for their offspring, and for future generations.

A Four-Decade Study

How Fathers Care for the Next Generation

Not since Anna Freud's 1937 book, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, has any one volume explored this topic as fully as Ego Mechanisms of Defense by George E. Vaillant. By summarizing the latest empirical studies, proposing a universal language of defense mechanisms, and demonstrating how various assessment methods can be used in diagnosis, case formulation, and treatment, Dr. Vaillant and an interdisciplinary group of contributors provide the groundwork for clinical practice as well as future research in the field.

George E. Vaillant

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