Genetic or Societal: What really causes Psycholigical Disorders?

With the growing interest in mental illness and its progression into the scholarly world, much discussion has evolved in the debate of causes of these life changing diseases. As with any other illness, the key starting point to its treatment is knowledge of its origin so that those primary factors may be changed in future populations or their negative effects may possibly be reversed by therapy, medication, or counseling.

Among the large, up-to-date libraries of information The National Mental Health Information Center provides on psychological disorders, there are detailed articles involving the great amounts health risks that a child incurs when born to mentally ill parents. It is said that the general population has a risk of suffering from mental disorders of about 20% while children of parents with diagnosed psychological disorders have an increased rate of 30-50%. They also often show greater risks of social disorders, lower academic performance, and increased pregnancy complications and post-birth health problems. The issue with statistics such as these, however, lies in the inability to perform error-proof experiments. It is nearly impossible for a researcher to attribute these passed on psychological disorders to genetics based on parent to offspring transmission. Because having a psychological illness may greatly affect one’s personality and lifestyle, these factors, which would be considered environmental, may really be the cause of the child’s similarities in behavior and affinity for a mental illness.

A 30 year long study at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine has recently revealed that low birth weight and child abuse greatly increase the chances of depression and other social and psychological disorder. This contributing factor is a combination of the two hypotheses, and, due to its nature, could be very useful information to the psychological world. By providing easily accessible, affordable, quality healthcare to expecting mothers the issue of low-birth weight can be heavily monitored throughout the pregnancy and taken care of through medicinal support such as steroids and extended womb incubation. Programs to monitor the infant after birth can also be coordinated through donations and free-clinic programs. The latter part of the problem must be dealt with by improving many bigger social issues such as poverty, drug-abuse, homelessness and finally domestic abuse. Dealing with such high stressors in the primary stages of development has lifelong diminishing effects.

Although the search continues for answers to this unnerving question, the data is small in comparison to the big picture and our quest for an answer continues without much guidance. It seems at this stage in the research there is substantial evidence for both cases and many psychologists would confirm that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the presence of mental illnesses. Based on information I have read and cases I have seen, I believe there is a genetic predisposition is certain individuals that is then set off by some traumatizing series of events in their lives that leave them psychologically and socially defective. It does not help however that society lacks knowledge and desire to assist people in this situation and therefore debilitates them further. The answers to our questions of the source of mental illness lie in a joint effort to achieve resolution in cures for these diseases and better lives for the people they afflict.