George Eman Vaillant

George Eman Vaillant (/vəˈlænt/; born June 16, 1934) is an American psychiatrist and Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of Research for the Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Vaillant has spent his research career charting adult development and the recovery process of schizophrenia, heroin addiction, alcoholism, and personality disorder.

George Eman, who was 10 years old at the time, was traumatized by his father's suicide and thus had deep emotional reasons for being interested in psychiatry.

A major focus of his work in the past has been to develop ways of studying defense mechanisms empirically; more recently, he has been interested in successful aging and human happiness.

In June 2009, Joshua Wolf Shenk published an article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled "What Makes Us Happy?"