Role of Life Events in the Causation of Affective Disorders

Life-event research has arguably proved to be the most effective way of gaining insights into how the external environment helps to generate and perpetuate depressive conditions. An early achievement was to make clear that concepts such as the amount of mere change in activity brought about by an event is largely irrelevant, and it was essential to deal directly with the meaning of events and their emotional impact (Brown and Harris 1978). It has also proved important to pay some attention to ongoing difficulties that can either be brought about by an event (the death of a husband leading to financial problems) or lead to an event (a marital difficulty eventually ending in a separation).