Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and other forms of mental illnesses are typically attributed to family history. While it’s true in some cases that mental illness can be hereditary, genetics are not always the reason people suffer from mental illnesses. Here, we take a look at how some psychologists are arguing that mental illness may more than likely be caused by environmental factors rather than genetics.

Genetics. For a time, people seemed to think that mental illnesses were linked to genetics, and that people whose parents or grandparents had suffered from any sort of mental illness would also likely suffer from it. Now, we're finding out that what we previously believed… may be wrong.

Biology. Millions of dollars has been spent on researching the biological factors that contribute to mental illness, according to the Telegraph. Although research has indeed found that some genes cause people to be more prone to mental illness than others, psychologists think this isn’t the only cause.


Factors. Psychologists think that other factors like unemployment, abuse, or other traumas can also lead to mental illness. This means that rather than spending a large sum of money on genetics research, experts should instead be trying to understand how stressful life events and environmental factors affect certain people.

Emotion. "Of course every single action, every emotion I’ve ever had involves the brain, so to have a piece of scientific research telling us that the brain is involved in responding emotionally to events doesn’t really advance our understanding very much,” says a professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool, Peter Kinderman, as reported by the Telegraph.

Childhood. Kinderman wants people to know that a person’s childhood shapes their adult personality in a very large way, especially if they’ve suffered through some kind of traumatic event at a young age. Our formative years are our most vulnerable; what happens to us then can affect us for years to come. And sometimes this means developing a mental illness.

Trauma. “It detracts from the idea that trauma in childhood is a very very powerful predictor of serious problems like experiencing psychotic events in adult life, so of course the brain is involved and of course genes are involved, but not very much, and an excessive focus on those issues takes us away from these very important social factors,” said Kinderman.


Social conditions. Rather than focus on scientific and medical factors, researchers should be more focused on analyzing the social conditions of people with mental illness. But according to Professor Richard Bentall of Liverpool University, “It is impossible to get funding to look at these kind of things.”

The facts. A reported 42.5 million Americans suffer from some form of mental illness, making that approximately one in five adults who experience some sort of mental illness, according to Newsweek. It's a widespread problem. Much more so than we usually admit.



What do you believe?

I think that some mental illnesses could be passed through genetics, which ones though, I don't know.

But I really do believe that the majority of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety are caused by real life factors. Losing a loved one, unemployment, self confidence, etc are huge factors that could lead to depression and anxiety.

I believe it all comes down to the environmental factors. The environment we have lived in has had a huge role in making us the person we are today or will be in 10/20/30 years.
Though I am not saying that genetics have nothing to do with it. I don't believe a person is born with mental illness but i think that people with genetic tendency for mental illnesses may be more likely to show the symptoms of illness when affected by environmental factors, while a person without genetic tendency would remain healthy in the same situation.

You can be more or less genetically predisposed to mental illness. Extrinsic factors will amplify this.

It is argued that if an identical twin has schizophrenia, the chances of the other twin having it are 52% (Genetically), Therefore we must ask the obvious question.. where did the other 48% go? I believe people may have a predisposition to certain illnesses through genetics, and certain environmental factors can enforce the illness to occur.

It has also been suggested that we can learn mental illness. For example the psychologist Martin Seligman (1967) did an experiment with dogs. A dog would be in a box with a fence separating 2 sides. The floor would electrocute the dog and thus making the dog jump to the other side of the box. After numerous times of electric shocking, the dog would simply stay in the same position. This theory is called learned helplessness, and is implied it can be addressed to depression, as a result from perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.

I mostly agree with Red about predisposition. The environmental factor comes into play when you consider how habitual thought patterns are. People become accustomed to thinking a certain way. The most "black and white" example of this is positive and negative interpretations of the same situation. Neural connections strengthen from regular use - practice makes perfect! This is why I'm a firm believer that happiness is a choice. While environment strongly influences how easy it is to form a certain outlook, consciously altering your train of thought to a more positive direction will increase synaptic strength and enable you to enter that mental framework slightly easier next time.

I believe that it is a combination of both, due to personal experience.

Yes, your genetics can lead you to either have or be more prone to mental disorders that your near-ancestors possess(ed). Yes, it is very common.

But environmental conditions play a role too. Some psychosomatic symptoms (physical) can be linked to environmental stress, and I believe that mental symptoms can do the same. Your pre-existing illness can be "flared-up" (for lack of a better word) by your current environmental issues. Similar to allergies - you always have it, it just flares up when you're exposed to certain conditions.

Researching this would be difficult though, especially due to some mental illnesses being able to go into "remission" (while I don't agree with this, some doctors do). So the degree of flare-up caused by a situation would be difficult.
Also, it would be hard to test this without exposing the test subjects to a great deal of stress, risking further psychological damage.

Omg i have so much to say on this! but it is late and i need to sleep so i will wait till tomorrow hahaha! 

Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and other forms of mental illnesses are typically attributed to family history.


Factors. Psychologists think that other factors like unemployment, abuse, or other traumas can also lead to mental illness. This means that rather than spending a large sum of money on genetics research, experts should instead be trying to understand how stressful life events and environmental factors affect certain people.


Childhood. Kinderman wants people to know that a person’s childhood shapes their adult personality in a very large way, especially if they’ve suffered through some kind of traumatic event at a young age. Our formative years are our most vulnerable; what happens to us then can affect us for years to come. And sometimes this means developing a mental illness.

Trauma. “It detracts from the idea that trauma in childhood is a very very powerful predictor of serious problems like experiencing psychotic events in adult life, so of course the brain is involved and of course genes are involved, but not very much, and an excessive focus on those issues takes us away from these very important social factors,” said Kinderman.


Social conditions. Rather than focus on scientific and medical factors, researchers should be more focused on analyzing the social conditions of people with mental illness. But according to Professor Richard Bentall of Liverpool University, “It is impossible to get funding to look at these kind of things.”


What do you believe?

Well i have been told by experts here in New Zealand that the crux cause of my ongoing struggle with depression is as a direct result of both physical and mental abuse during what is classed as formative years here (from age 0-10).

That life has a pre-planned straight line of events that are supposed to happen at a given age/moment in ones life and any abuse etc deviates from this causing chemical imbalances in the way the brain develops.

Personally I think that it is a mixture of both genetic and environmental factors but each have their own input into how you cope with life. If your parent/parents do not cope with their lives (and to a certain degree you *learn* this off parents) then you have not learnt the basics of how to cope with stressful situations yourself or more commonly known/thought of as life skills.

I hope this does not bring anybody down in clan but depression is NOT easy to cope with (28 years on medication) nor is there an easy fix out there.

Its caused by playing rs 18 hours a day for 5 years in a row.

From my understanding, they're typically attributed to both, not just one. Just like nature vs nurture, it's a 50/50 shot at it.

For me, my brother has and grandfather had depression so when I was diagnosed, it wasn't super surprising. For my girlfriend, she was the first person in her family diagnosed with Anxiety so hers probably wasn't genetic.

That's what I learned in Psych 101, but I'm also nowhere close to being an expert