Shedding light on the onset of psychiatric illness: looking through a developmental lens

Background

Understanding the mechanisms driving the onset of major psychiatric illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia has been far more challenging than expected. Contributing factors include that symptoms associated with each of these disorders overlap during different phases of emerging illness1 and over the course of established illness.2 In addition, while there is evidence supporting specificity of familial segregation,3 at least some genetic risk factors appear to be shared4 and treatment response crosses currently defined diagnostic boundaries.5 

But does it follow, as some propose,6 that psychiatric illnesses are really different manifestations of a common origin—in other words that different psychiatric illnesses derive from pluripotent or shared beginnings and specific outcomes depend on mediating and moderating influences? Epidemiological and high-risk prospective studies provide compelling evidence to the contrary. In fact, a developmental perspective has illuminated clear distinctions in…

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