Submitted by: Submitted by georgez
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Category: Philosophy and Psychology
Date Submitted: 10/13/2014 11:40 PM
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Mental Illness and its correlations to nature and nurture
Do one’s genetic framework and physical surroundings and experience automatically qualify one to be diagnosed with a mental illness at one point in his life or another? If the answer is affirmative then which of the two (nature versus nurture) play the more pivotal role in the development of psychiatric disorders? The purpose of this paper is to examine the arguments for and against nature and nurture and come up with a plausible solution to this hotly debated topic.
We begin with the various definitions of mental disorder according to various experts on the matter. A mental illness can basically be described as a disorder of the brain that disrupts the proper functioning of the individual. Another broad definition is a health condition that alters the thinking, comprehension, mood and behavior of an individual and this alteration causes the individual not to function as efficiently as he normally would (Grob & Goldman, 2006).
Years ago prior to the biologizing of modern medicine, mental illnesses were pegged on bad mothering, poverty, curses passed down from one generation to the next, improper social influences among other diverse environmental causes. However, a cultural shift developed whereby people began believing that mental disorders were primarily as a result of bad genes.
A lot of research has been conducted on how genes can predispose individuals to mental illnesses. Most of the experts conducting the research are trying to show that the environment of an individual i.e. his upbringing and social influences have no part to play when it comes to developing mental conditions. However, there lies a significant problem with this form of thinking.
According to Lyman Wynne, one of the leading schizophrenia experts in the world ‘Some investigators are so eager to find a simple biological cause of mental illness that they "fail to look at...