Biological factors
We are all born human. None of us is born a lobster (I live in Maine) or a baboon. So all of our attributes are within the range of the human genome. We each come into this world with our own particular assortment of abilities and propensities, emotions and temperaments, and peculiarities. Some of these peculiarities may be related to genetic anomalies, but known ones are rare and there are no clear connections between them and the characteristics that mark different mental disorders. Further, the more we learn about epigenetics, the more we recognize that whether certain genes are expressed or not depends on environmental conditions. What we are left with is that to call a mental disorder genetic is an essentially meaningless statement.
Psychological factors
What we should be clear about is that for us human beings, especially compared to all other animals, brains are shaped by life’s experiences. From the moment we enter the world, we begin to adapt and learn in order to meet the demands of the world around us. As we mature, these demands become more complex and social. We continuously develop our behavioral repertory, based on our abilities and needs. At each stage of life, we must develop new coping mechanisms to meet new challenges.
The patterns of behavior, thinking and feeling that we develop are what we call our personalities. Each personality has its strengths and weaknesses as the person confronts life. Some personality characteristics successfully help us lead satisfying lives, but others may be maladaptive and lead to chronic dysfunction. For instance, some maladaptive personality patterns may leave is unable to form rewarding interpersonal relationships. Other personality attributes leave us vulnerable to anxiety or depression.
Social factors
The power of situational forces to influence our actions, feelings and even our beliefs is vastly underestimated. We have a strong bias toward attributing psychological problems to dispositional factors; that is, personal qualities. When we look for causes of other people’s behavior, we invoke genetic make-up or personality or mental illness. But we are social animals, programmed by evolution to respond to and be shaped by the social forces around us.
The social context is of equal importance to personal attributes, such as mental disorder, in any attempt to understand the level of dysfunction a person exhibits. This context includes the rewards, punishments, social norms and expectations a person is subject to at any given time. These factors can be protective when they boost an individual’s self-esteem and can lead to the belief that the person can overcome difficulties. They can also be destructive and increase dysfunction when they reinforce disability.
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Source material from BrainBlogger