PART 1:

Describe one common disorder found in each age group: infants, children, adolescents, and adults. (You will be describing four disorders in all.) Using the diathesis-stress model, describe how the gene-environment interactions explain why people get these illnesses.Organize/Label your paper so it's evident that you address each part of the assignment. Carefully edit your essay so that it is free from grammatical and punctuation errors.

Your essay should meet the following specifications:

PART 2:

"Peggy, a 17-year-old female, was referred by her pediatrician to a child psychiatry clinic for evaluation of an eating disorder. she had lost 10 pounds in 2 months and her mother was concerned... At the clinic she stated that she was not trying to lose weight, had begun to sleep poorly about 2 months ago unless she had several beers, and that she and friends "got trashed" on weekends. Her relationship with her parents was poor; she had attempted suicide a year previously with aspirin and was briefly hospitalized. The day before this evaluation she had taken a razor to school to try and cut her wrists, but it was taken away by a friend. She admitted being depressed and wanting to commit suicide and finally told of discovering that she was pregnant 4 months earlier. Her boyfriend wanted her to abort, she was ambivalent, and then she miscarried spontaneously about 2 months after her discovery. After that, "it didn't really matter how I felt about anything"."

Revisit the case of Peggy (typed above). Hypothesize about how the diathesis-stress model might apply to her.

Study the three board criteria used to help define the line between normal and abnormal behavior. Given her situation, is Peggy's behavior normal or abnormal? Defend your answer.