CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SOCIAL FACTORS IN MENTAL 

 DEVELOPMENT 



FLORENCE POWDERMAKER, M.D., Ph.D. 



New York City 



Studies on the inheritance of mental disease have invariably used the 

 incidence of this condition in succeeding generations of a family as prima 

 facie evidence of an hereditary factor. However, it appears from even a 

 casual examination that the situation is infinitely more complicated. In 

 contrast to the known laws of inheritance of certain physical traits, there 

 is in mental disease an obvious, direct influence of environment in its 

 etiology, as well as the interaction of environment with constitution. 

 Because of these considerations the problem is demonstrably far from the 

 simple one that some genealogical studies would indicate. The very dis- 

 eases that are being studied in one generation of a family tree and which are 

 presumably inheritable are exerting at the same time a definite environ- 

 mental effect also. It is the purpose of this paper to indicate the mechan- 

 isms by which the unstable parent may so effect the surroundings of the 

 child as to make it an important factor in the development of mental 

 aberrations in the child quite apart from, and in addition to, the problem 

 of inherited tendency. 



In consideration of the dynamic concept of mental disease it is postulated 

 that experiences in childhood may lead to a neurosis or psychosis only when 

 the constitution of the individual is phylogenetically predisposed to such 

 reactions. It is also postulated, however, that these childhood experiences 

 act as the pathogenic factor in the etiology of the disease in those who are 

 predisposed. This leads us to the following concepts which are not meant 

 to under-estimate the possible importance of an hereditary factor, but to 

 call attention to the particular environmental factors operating in a situa- 

 tion in which mental disease is present in one or more generations. 



We may think of mental disease in its broadest concept as the inability 

 of a person to adjust to his surroundings in a fashion satisfactory to himself 

 and to society. Thus, in order to grow into a socialized human being the 

 developing individual has to make an adjustment between his normal 

 instinctual desires and the desires and ideals of the milieu in which he is 

 reared. Some of these instincts may find a direct or almost direct outlet. 



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