been on the nature of the event and the amount of change it
requires. There are three ways to categorize life events:
1. By social activity. This includes family, work, educational,
social, health, financial, legal, or community
crises.
2. By social field. These events are defined as entrances
and exits. An entrance is the introduction of a new person
into the individual’s social field; an exit is the departure
of a significant other from the person’s social field.
3. By social desirability. Within social norms, events can
be considered generally desirable, such as promotion,
engagement, and marriage, or generally undesirable, such
as death, financial problems, being fired, and divorce.
Unfortunately, it is hard to determine the exact role played
by stressful life events. Although they have been correlated
with the onset of anxiety and disease symptoms, the research
has been criticized. For example, the particular events listed
on a stressful life event scale may not be the most relevant
to certain groups, such as students, working mothers, different
cultural groups, the elderly, the poor, or the persistently
mentally ill. Also the life-events approach provides no clues
to the specific way in which the events affect physical or mental
health.
It is better, therefore, to think about stressful life events
along a continuum that can influence the development of
psychiatric illness. At one end of the continuum, they may act
as triggers that precipitate an illness in people who would have
developed the illness eventually for one reason or another.
At the other end of the continuum, stressful life events may
make a person more vulnerable, reduce an individual’s resistance
and coping resources, and thus make the person more
susceptible to psychiatric distress and illness.