Sociologists and anthropologists have long been engaged to study the changes in society, over time. This is particularly true since the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, heights of history, that caused profound changes in the forms of relationships between men, in family scale and in the society itself. The industrial revolution, the exodus to the city, the emancipation of women, the world wars, the creation of the European economic community, the mass media and consumerism, have profoundly altered the social networks and engagement in which man lived since ancient times. The authors aim to address this issue, by trying to understand the behavioral changes that were needed to adapt to this new structure of society and in what way they were responsible for the loss of mechanisms of cooping, with the anti - social behaviour, with stress and depression.

The Portuguese example is finally exploited, given the most significant changes in the last century, as the fall of the monarchy, the instability of the early republic, the dictatorship, the colonial war, the April 25, the entry into the EEC.