Robert Waldinger Keynote Speaker

Dr. Robert Waldinger is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who studies human development across the adult lifespan, with a special emphasis on the ways that close relationships shape our lives and affect our health.

Robert is also Director of the Center for Psychodynamic Therapy and Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. As one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history, the study has been following two groups of men over the last 75 years to identify the psychosocial predictors of healthy ageing. Research questions include what aspects of childhood and adult experience predict the quality of intimate relationships in late life, and how late life marriage is linked with health and well-being.

He was the recipient of a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health to study emotion regulation and health in intimate adult relationships. He is the author of numerous scientific papers as well as two books, and he is on the faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute.

Drawing from this work, his talks offer insight into relationships and their impact on the happiness and health of our lives; meditation and the wisdom of Zen, and how we can practice these for a more fulfilling life; psychotherapy’s role in healing and living the life we want; and the latest research from the longitudinal study on adult life.