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Social Factors and Recovery from Anxiety and Depressive Disorders

A Test of Specificity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

G. W. Brown ,
L. Lemyre  and
A. Bifulco
G. W. Brown*
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway & Bedford New College, London
L. Lemyre
Affiliation:
Université Laval, Ecole de Psychologic Cite Universitaire, Quebec, Canada
A. Bifulco
Affiliation:
MRC Staff, Royal Holloway & Bedford New College, London
*
∗Department of Social Policy and Social Science, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (University of London), 11 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3RA
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Abstract

Analysis of 33 instances of recovery or improvement among 92 women with anxiety, and 49 instances of recovery and improvement among 67 episodes of depression, showed that recovery and improvement, when compared with conditions not changing, were associated with a prior positive event. Such events were characterised by one or more of three dimensions: the ‘anchoring’ dimension involved increased security; ‘fresh-start’, increased hope arising from a lessening of a difficulty or deprivation; and ‘relief’, the amelioration of a difficulty not involving any sense of a fresh start. Events characterised by anchoring were more often associated with recovery or improvement in anxiety, and those characterised as fresh-start were associated with recovery or improvement in depression. Recovery or improvement in both disorders was more likely to be associated with both anchoring and fresh-start events. The study involved the reworking of some social and clinical material, and although done blind should be seen as exploratory.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 161 , Issue 1 , July 1992 , pp. 44 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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