Etiologies of Mental Disorders

dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia

suggests that the delusions, hallucinations, and agitation associated with schizophrenia arise from an excess of dopamine activity at certain sites in the brain, or that there is an oversensitivity to dopamine in the brain

double-bind hypothesis of schizophrenia

holds that as a child, the person with schizophrenia received contradictory and mutually incompatible messages from their primary caregiver; over time, these disorganized messages become internalized, and the child begins to feel that their perception of reality is unreliable

monoamine/catecholamine theory of depression

holds that too much norepinephrine and serotonin leads to mania, while too little leads to depression

diathesis-stress model

a framework used to examine the causes of mental disorders; a person may have a predisposition toward developing a specific mental disorder, and excessive stress operating on a person with a predisposition may lead to the development of the specific mental disorder