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Contributions of Society, Culture, and Social Class to Emotional Disorder

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Encyclopedia of Primary Prevention and Health Promotion
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In this entry, I discuss the often negative contributions of society, culture, and social class to emotional disorders – in contrast to points of view that seek a brain defect for all mental illnesses. (In 1967 I was a participant in a symposium on “Industrialism, Behavioral Sciences, and Mental Health” at the Inter American Society of Psychology, in Mexico City. I prepared a long paper on “Social and cultural factors influencing disturbed behavior: The disappearance of sex in industrial society.” Later I incorporated parts of that paper in a Distinguished Professional Contribution Award Invited address, “The Protestant Ethic, Sex, and Psychotherapy” which appeared in The American Psychologist, 1977, 32(2), 150–161. In the current entry, I have used parts of both of these early papers, along with my later writings, especially Albee (1996a, 1996b); all of these are used with permission of the American Psychological Association.)

Knowing the predominant environmental causes of emotional...

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Albee, G.W. (2014). Contributions of Society, Culture, and Social Class to Emotional Disorder. In: Gullotta, T.P., Bloom, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Primary Prevention and Health Promotion. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5999-6_339

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