The long-term effects of childhood adversities on depression and other psychiatric disorders

George Brown and Tirril Harris’s influential book The Social Origins of Depression (1978) was published the year I began my post-doctoral training in psychiatric epidemiology. The book was not only required reading in our training programme, but also the source of great inspiration to all of us in the programme. Many of the psychiatric epidemiologists of my generation, myself included, credit the intellectual excitement generated by that book and by George and Tirril’s subsequent writings as major factors in our decision to continue in the field. In my own case, the encouragement and friendship George so generously bestowed on me have also been additional important sources of inspiration.