ABSTRACT
Historical and geographical perspectives can add breadth and validity to our theories about the etiological and course-determining factors in psychopathology. Our initial speculations about causes often apply to members of our own contemporary culture, because that is the population we have usually spent our lives trying to understand. But when we move outside this population, we can perceive the limitations of our theories as our predictions fail. All effects are conditional. Although many of the risks for increased probability of psychopathology may replicate over time and population, there are always circumstances in which their effects are empirically or theoretically absent, particularly when the mechanisms through which their effects operate are neutralized or eliminated. When these mechanisms are identified, we reach a more profound understanding of why, when, and how the geographic, cultural, and historical frames permit, promote, and inhibit the development of psychopathology.
