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Assessment of life events

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Schizophrenia

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Abstract

There is now a substantive literature attesting to the important role played by recent life events in a number of psychiatric and physical illnesses. For some conditions such as depression, the debate has moved beyond the issue of whether events are aetiological agents to arguments about the strength of the association, and the social and biological vulnerabilities on which they operate. However, for most disorders including schizophrenia, research has not progressed much beyond the first steps towards establishing casual links. The evidence reviewed by Bebbington and Kuipers (Chapter 8) suggests that people who suffer from schizophrenia may be at greater risk of relapse if they are exposed to stressful environments which heighten levels of psychological arousal and that relapse may be prevented by interventions which reduce this exposure. So far, it has only been practicable to attempt such interventions for a narrow subset of chronic Stressors (i.e. high ‘expressed emotion’ family environments). Ideally, it should be possible to develop interventions to reduce the occurrence or impact of other stressful experiences as well, but at present, this seems an unattainable target.

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Authors
  1. T. J. K. Craig
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Sydney, Australia

    David J. Kavanagh Dip.Psychol. PhD (Senior Lecturer in Psychology) (Senior Lecturer in Psychology)

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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Craig, T.J.K. (1992). Assessment of life events. In: Kavanagh, D.J. (eds) Schizophrenia. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-4457-3_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-4457-3_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-412-38900-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-4457-3

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