Zunaira Arshad

384-FSS/BSPSY/F12

The diathesis-stress model

It describes how genetic or biological factors interact with environmental
stress which results in a disorder or condition. Specifically, this theory
purports that an individuals biological vulnerabilities, or predispositions, to
particular psychological disorders can be triggered by stressful life events.
Heres an example of study of depression:

The early onset form of depression has commonly been associated with
stressors stressful situations. That can include both social stressors like
for example abuse, physical or sexual abuse, or it can include physiological
stressors like some medical illness or perhaps the stressor of going through
a pregnancy and delivering, or it can include stressful situations arising

with just repetitive stress like bullying or perhaps even family stress or job
stress. In this context, it is thought that there are gene-environment
interactions that are playing some role. The gene-environment interaction
that has been characterized best in depression so far has involved a
mutation in the serotonin transporter region and the serotonin transporter
ends up being the main target of most anti-depressant treatments (the
main primary target of most anti-depressant treatments), so its had
relevance for studies in depression. It turns out this particular mutation will
increase the risk of depression only within the context of stress arising
early in life. Now once the course of depression begins though, the role of
stressors seems to become less prevalent. Later in life the new episodes
often dont have any clear stressful precipitants at all, and the episodes
become more spontaneous and sometimes they dont go away even when
the stressor is resolved. So the end state of depression is often where you
get spontaneous, recurrent or even chronic depression that gets harder
and harder to treat and becomes more and more disabling, and where one
stops going back to normal (the normal mood state between episodes). At
this point we dont know how to distinguish those individuals that will end
up in that more chronic, disabling end state versus those individuals that
will be somehow resilient and can get over an episode of depression and
then may go years without another episode.