Social Stress Theory: Jebera

Adding to all of this, Jebera had just moved down in economic standing. As the Social Stress theory of disabilities pointed out a shift downward in social states causes a significant amount of stress which in turn increases the likelihood an individual develops a mental disorder. In particular, looking at Life Event theory several events contribute stress overtime to lead to a detrimental impact. The mental illness is caused by two kinds of stressors, things that can cause the individual to have to adapt causing stress. There is chronic stress or things that are constantly present that cause stress. For Jebera, this would include being in the low-income bracket and being harassed for failing to meet the role of father. On the other hand, there …show more content…
In particular, the major life event focused on is his being fired which rated rather high as a life stressor, an 8 or 47 mean value on the scale of life stressors, making the very act of being fired a significant stressor in itself . However, Jebera was suffering from the chronic stress of low economic statutes that prevented him from completing his goals, roles, and so on. These two combined along with his lower paying job to a constant high level of stress. This stress would be causing a reaction from the sympathetic nervous system the same as bear attacks or other threats to one’s safety causes. This discharge in the nervous system then leads to the near constant release of hormones such as adrenaline and norepinephrine. These hormones, in turn, raised Jebera’s awareness, anxiety, and blood pressure until finally he begins to develop physical and mental difficulties from the strain . The reason Jebera chose to internalize his problems leading to a mood disorder versus expressing his stress by drinking, using drugs or being violent is mostly a combination of genetic and social factors. He was mostly predisposed to have a high enough stress threshold that he could stand the daily problems of low-income living, but not the added stress of losing his job. Social factors and the available moderators, individuals and skills that allow one to lessen the impact of stress, would not allow him …show more content…
Here the focus is less on single events adding up to an accumulative impact and more on the tension caused by being in the lower rungs of social and economic class. In the Marx’s view, the self is only understood through the community and others. Whereas, Capitalism hurts this relationship by trying to get people to look for the self in the individual. He went further saying the only true way to know one’s self-was through work as work revealed one’s self and relationship to the whole. The upper class, however, used the capitalistic system to exploit the lower classes work leaving them alienated, stressed, and deviant. One can see this happening with Jebera as he lost his job only to get a lower paying job that has higher work demands. He does not connect with this job and it has quickly become the seeming source of his mental illness. He has begun to feel alienated, disconnected from the group and self, leaving an unfulfilled and confused individual behind. In turn, Jebera had adopted behavior that reflects his confusion and disconnect from the situation as he has stopped identifying with his work he puts less of himself into it. Later on, when he was analyzed his behavior was deemed incongruent with the sociable expectations and goals, deviant. In this particular look, this deviance is interpreted as and labeled depression, a mental illness. The key here is not the need to fix the behavior but to