Psychopathology and development: I. Childhood antecedents of adult psychiatric disorder

Abstract

The childhood antecedents of psychiatric disorder in adult life are reviewed with regard to four groups of conditions that show sharply contrasting patterns of linkage between childhood and adult life. For emotional disorders the links are weak and the mechanisms largely unknown. About half of schizophrenic psychoses are preceded by non-psychotic abnormalities of behaviour in childhood; the processes involved are probably largely constitutional. Affective disorders only infrequently begin in childhood and the behavioural precursors of adult depression do not constitute a clearly recognisable pattern. However, adverse experiences in childhood may create a vulnerability to later depression. The child-adult linkages are strongest with conduct disturbance in childhood and adult personality disorder; the mechanisms in this continuity are probably both constitutional and environmental.