Hi Ox6a74,

I just read your post and it made me wish I could write my post over. Stress is such a general, wastebasket word... it can mean so many things.... a certain amount of "stress" is even necessary. What I wish I had said was that in my training I had the chance to delve into the history of specific peoples lives and of the course of their mental illness and saw how sometimes a series of unexpected happenings changed the trajectory of their lives and their capacity in a way that neither they nor their family could have foreseen. Of course there could be some genetics involved but I don't think genetics is black and white in this area. Of couse there could be chemical changes in their brain but did the external experience cause the internal chemical changes or did the internal cause the external ? The field of psychoneuroimmunology is in it's infancy but they are working on better understanding questions like this.....

Mostly my point was to say that as a young practitioner it was driven home to me by this experience that no economic or community status, education level, profession, age, etc. is an immunization against mental illness.


V.