Family Discourse: Physiological Correlates of Different Degrees of Stress

Abstract

An important basis for this work is the vulnerability model proposed by Zubin & Spring (1977). They integrated findings on schizophrenia in a second-order model showing the relationship between vulnerability to schizophrenia and stress, adaptation to stress, and especially coping breakdown, i.e. the incapacity to adapt in the shorter or longer term. Thus, given a certain degree of vulnerability, stress, and how the affected individual copes with it are the critical factors for the occurrence of a schizophrenic episode. The work presented here describes an empirical investigation of these two components.