Even though different circumstances tend to provoke different forms of stress reactions, society and genetics have been widely linked to the development of mental illness by researchers. The surrounding environment of an individual determines the mental growth and psychological status of that person (Tsuang et al., 2004). Children who are raised by disadvantageous families, for example, are taken to attend poor schools, play with disruptive peers, exposed to violence, emotional, physical or sexual abuses, as a result, these exposures offer an exceptional review of the psychological consequences throughout the child’s life. In an instance where a child or an adult was once molested, the survivor is left with high levels of personality disorder, psychological disturbances and major distress in life. This essay explains in details how society and genetics are provocative factors in the development of mental illness amongst some people.
Poor parenting is also a major source of distress in human life. A research was conducted using rats to determine how neonatal experiences has an impact in cognitive-emotional response. The results indicated that rats brought up by less fostering mothers had lower amounts of serotonin in relation to those raised by nurturing mothers (Neil et al., 2008). In addition, rats with high levels of serotonin were also found to have a high number of “glucocorticoid receptors in the limbic system”, as a result, their glucocorticoid feedback into the CNS was more improved than the rats with less serotonin (Tsuang et al., 2004). Furthermore, the female rats who received less level of nurturing turn into lowly nurturing mothers and their offspring grew into highly-anxiety adults with frequent stress responses. This, in turn, is directly related to adult’s offspring of divorced or less caring parents who have an explicit behavior of anxiety, depression, lack of social interest and poor school performance (Neil et al., 2008).
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Psychological consequences of exposure to terrorism and war have also been addressed by many researchers. A number of individual exposed to a society full of violence crimes, war and harassment are reported to having a high level of psychological indisposition, depressive symptoms, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Kuwaiti for example, had a traumatic incidence of Gulf war after which they discovered that about 71 percent of the children who survived the tragedy were reported to having a mild to severe post-traumatic stress. Another research found that about 43 percent of Lebanese children had post-traumatic stress manifestation after a long period of war-related trauma (Neil et al., 2008). Generally, a population that lives in a more stressful environment traumatized by natural disasters, overcrowding, business failures and higher divorce families are more prone to mental related disorders than those who live in a peaceful and economically stable society.
Mental Illness has also been linked with genetic factors by researchers, advances in molecular genetics studies have identified genetic variants associated with mental disorders. According to adoption study investigations, Individuals who have had one of their family members having schizophrenia are more likely to suffer from the same mental disorder than their counterparts. They found that schizophrenic people share a biological family history of mental disorder characterized by environmental factors such as family conflict, deviant communication, and poor cohesion. When family members have genetic risk factors and are exposed to these environmental influences they end up having chronic psychiatric symptoms (Tsuang et al., 2004).
In conclusion, mental illness can be control at an individual level, when people face dangers to homeostasis they must face it with adaptive responses because the future generation’s life lies in their parent's capability to handle potent stressors. The best way to create a healthy society is to change our own perspective towards life, living a positive life in a mid of global threats helps individual to alleviate chances of mental illness development.
References
Neil, S., Gail, I., & Siegel, S. D. (2008). Stress And Health: Psychological, Behavioral, and Biological Determinants . HHH Author Manuscripts. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2568977/
Tsuang, M. T., Bar, J. L., Stone, W. S., & Faraone, S. V. (2004). Gene-environment interactions in mental disorders . World Psychiatry Journal. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1414673/
