ABSTRACT
Vulnerability-stress models imply that the underlying basis of Schizophrenia is biological but includes an environmental trigger factor that could be social and/or psychological that has to be present for the disease to emerge. Vulnerability-stress models have also been used to explain differing rates of occurrence in Schizophrenia between social and also ethnic groups. The argument runs that even if the vulnerability is evenly distributed throughout the population, the stresses of poverty, and/or being on the receiving end of racism, results in higher than average rates of Schizophrenia in the lower socio-economic groups and certain ethnic minorities. Perhaps the most significant, enduring and potentially useful of the vulnerability-stress models is the theory of Expressed Emotion (EE). Families are rated as either high EE or low EE and the research seems to indicate that relapse is more common in high EE families than low EE families.
