The relevance of family variables in child and adolescent mental health

摘要

Modern concepts of developmental psychiatry have emphasized the relevance of the interplay between genetic and environmental factors in the etiological roots for child mental disorders for a long time [8]. However, genetic aspects have raised much more attention in the last years due to the great development in our understanding on how genes determine vulnerabilities for psychopathology and the high heritability associated with several major mental disorders. Causing some disappointment in the field, very recent findings are indicating that genetic vulnerabilities might work through more unspecific pathways than previously expected (see [2, 3]).