Life Course Approach

A life course approach to mental disorders looks at the relationship of social and biological factors in the production and consequences of mental illness over the life span from the prenatal period to death and across generations. The life course approach to mental disorders draws on two foundations: the psychological life span perspective and the developmental psychopathology perspective. For example, periconceptional exposure to famine has been strongly linked to schizophrenia and reports also suggest that prenatal famine may be linked to mood disorder and antisocial personality disorder.
Factors we can realistically change would be to optimize health across the lifespan, for all people, examples of that could be providing clean drinking water and nutritious foods and decreasing maternal stress. I do not think that there is anyway real change can be made in the poverty status of families, racism, and clean air. …show more content…
Some people are born with a temperament that predisposes them to higher or lower levels of tolerance to stress. Our cognitive reaction to a situation plays a role in determining how stressful a situation is to us. This reaction is characterized by people’s appraisal of the nature, importance and implications of the event, and by their ability to effectively manage or cope with the event. Experts have developed several explanations for why certain people respond more positively or negatively to stressors. These include: Our genetic makeup, which influences health and behavior. To some degree, it is human nature to feel stressed when we are not sure what to do or when faced with making a difficult or frustrating decision. And, some individuals may have a heightened level of arousal in the central nervous system, causing them to react more excitedly to events and adapt more