The Diathesis-Stress model Flashcards
What is the diathesis-stress model?
The diathesis-stress model is a concept in psychiatry and psychopathology that offers a theory of how psychological disorders emerge.
Explain how the diathesis stress model impacts depression.
The diathesis-stress model explains depression as the result of genetic predispositions interacting with stressful life events. The model also helps explain suicidal behavior by considering genetic, early childhood, and stress factors. It provides a more comprehensive understanding of mental illness than earlier theories that focused solely on genetics or environment, and has broad applicability in psychiatry.
Explain how the diathesis stress model impacts schizophrenia.
Although schizophrenia has a strong genetic component, not everyone with a genetic predisposition develops the disorder. Many psychiatrists now believe that schizophrenia results from a genetic vulnerability combined with later-life stress, which triggers the onset of the disorder.
Some researchers have proposed a neural diathesis-stress model, suggesting that brain changes caused by genetic factors and stress contribute to the development of schizophrenia (Jones and Fernyhough, 2007). Therefore, the diathesis-stress model effectively explains the origins of schizophrenia and is supported by neuroscience evidence.
What are the protective factors in regards to the diathesis-stress model?
Protective factors are positive elements that reduce the likelihood of developing a psychological disorder, even in individuals with significant diatheses and stresses. These can include conditions like strong social support or therapy, and attributes like resilience, emotional competence, and healthy coping strategies. The original diathesis-stress model did not account for these factors, but it has since been updated to include them, forming the stress-vulnerability-protective factors model by Theodore in 2020.
What is meant by stress?
Stress is a biological and emotional response that is caused by chemicals and hormones surging throughout your body.
Stress can help you respond to a particular problem, but too much can harm your health. It also triggers your fight-or-flight response which means it can make you from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous.
What is meant by diathesis in the concept of the stress diathesis model?
In the context of the diathesis-stress model, this disposition is a factor that makes it more likely that an individual will develop a disorder following a stressful life event. A diathesis can be a biological factor, like abnormal variations in one or more genes. But other sorts of factors, even if not genetically hard-wired, can also be considered diatheses so long as they form early on and are stable across a person’s life. For example, traumatic early life experiences, such as the loss of a parent, can act as longstanding predispositions to a psychological disorder. In addition, personality traits like high neuroticism are sometimes also referred to as diatheses. Finally, diatheses can be situational factors — like living in a low-income household or having a parent with mental illness.
