The document discusses various factors that can contribute to mental illness, including biological, cultural, and psychological factors. It divides life into stages from infancy to old age and discusses potential causes of abnormal behavior and challenges of adjustment at each stage. These include things like the quality of parenting and relationships in infancy and childhood, stresses of adolescence, crises of early adulthood, adjustments of middle age, and challenges of physical and social changes in old age. The document emphasizes that mental illness usually stems from multiple interacting factors rather than a single cause.

1. Causative Factors (Etiology) Health Illness Models M.D. Cecilia Meza From: Abnormal Psychology, by Walter J Coville (1963). UNIT 3

2. The causes of abnormal behavior are many and complex. To understand etiology of mental illness, one must also distinguish between predisposing and precipitating causes, both of which are found in any of the aforementioned classes of factors. Predisposing causes are those factors which have produced in the individual o susceptibility to some form of mental illness. Precipitating causes are those immediate stresses of traumatic incidents which trigger a mental disturbance. Biological Factors Cultural Factors Psychological Factors

3. Biological Factors Among the factors influencing the development of abnormal behavior the biological factors seem to play a vital part. The principal biological factors are: Heredity: is meant the biological endowment transmitted from the parents to the offspring at the instant of conception. Constitution: this term refers to the biological make up of the individual. Principal constitutional factors are: physique, temperament, endocrine functions, other aspects of body physiology. Physical disease and injury: alterations of body structure or function owing the disease or trauma may bring about mental abnormalities.

4. Cultural Factors Abnormal behavior in cultural groups Child-rearing practices Value System Technology and economic factors creating stress Problems of minority people Cataclysmic events

5. Psychological Factors Psychological causative factors are usually multiple and they operate in a complex and overlapping way, rarely, if ever, can abnormal behavior be traced to a single psychological factor. The chief facet of the life history is the pattern of the individual’s interpersonal relationships and the most convenient approach to the interpersonal history is the chronological one, dividing the life spam into seven periods: Infancy Early adulthood Early childhood Middle Age Late childhood Old Age Adolescence

6. Infancy Mothering: the infant’s first and most meaning full contact with the world outside himself is his physical relationship with his mother, the extent and quality of this relationship lays the foundation for his basic outlook and his attitude toward the world and himself. Feeding: the principal need the infant feels is engendered by hunger; consequently, the feeling situation is of critical importance in early personality development.

7. Early childhood This is the period in which the first earnest attempts at socialization are made. Parent-child relationships: extreme behavior in any direction between parent and child can be the source of emotional disturbance and later abnormal behavior. Rejection: since the child is dependent on his parents for evolution of himself and of the outside world any rejection on their will produce in him same form of negative rejection. Overprotection: when the parent consciously or unconsciously prevents the child from developing normal independence in his interaction with the environment, the situation of overprotecting is said to prevail. Marital disorder and broken name: basic to the propel development of the child’s personality is the parent’s role in providing him with an environment of parental affection an opportunity to experience authority and discipline in an acceptable manner, a value system and a healthy masculine and feminine identification.

8. Authority and discipline: he ability to adjust adequately to reality situations in our culture demands that the child learn to accept authority. Toilet training: a specific and highly critical phase of the child’s process of socialization is the development of blooded and howl control. Sexual development: the child’s acquaintance with sex begins with his awareness and exploration of his own body. Aggression and hostility: as the child's develops and learns to control his skeletal musculature, he discovers his capacity to respond to the environment with aggressive caution. Extreme frustrations and traumatic experiences: a stereotyped notion about abnormal behavior is that it can be treated to a single traumatic experience. Early childhood

9. Late Childhood The late childhood period normally begins during the sixth or seventh year of life, usually coinciding with the beginning of school for the child. It is a period characterized by vigorous physical growth and the emergency of significant intellectual abilities. During late childhood the child extends his sphere of social activity beyond the family role. Critical areas of adjustment fall into three categories ; physical development, school adjustment and socialization .

10. Adolescence The period of adolescence is heralded by the onset of a series of critical physiological changes, which bring the individual closer to physical and biological maturity. Along the fundamental biological changes there appear several psychological changes , such as growing independence of family ties, heightened heterosocial interests, self-consciousness, feelings of frustration at the threshold of maturity, and the maturation of vocational interests and ambitions.

11. Early adulthood With the end of the adolescence, the individual’s developmental process is deemed complete, and society that regards him as a mature person. The individual who comes to adulthood with feelings of security and confidence in his own abilities, may experience anxiety and disturbance in the midst of a crisis, but ultimately will face the event realistically and work out an adequate adjustment. The young adult with a history of childhood or adolescence insecurity or other personality maladjustment, confronted with the same crisis, may be precipitated into one of a number of personality disturbances such as depression, prolonged anxiety or psychosomatic disorders. Main crisis are: Courtship, Marriage and Parenthood and the Vocational Adjustment

12. Middle Age While this period is difficult to delimit in terms of years and could be well called “later adulthood”, it may be assumed to extend from the time when the individual’s marital, vocational, and social status had become reasonable fixed through the period of the climacteric or menopause. The principal areas of adjustment which the individual must face in middle age are: decline of physical vigor, change of family constellation, restriction of the possibility of future change and the menopause or climacteric.

13. Old Age The period cannot be clearly delineated because of the wide individual variability, previous attitudes, life situation and physical vigor influence the adjustment during the later years of life. Impaired sensory acuity, restricting the individual’s awareness of his surroundings, may induce feelings of suspiciousness and exclusion. Several cerebral changes may bring on psychiatric behavior. In this age the main crisis are the severe physical restriction, dependency, feelings of decreasing usefulness, and feelings of isolation

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