SOCIAL CLASS AND MENTAL ILLNESS RECONSIDERED: THE ROLE OF ECONOMIC STRESS AND SOCIAL SUPPORT.

Several bodies of research are reviewed for their contributions to defining the relationship of individual psychological disorder to social structure and process. The specific problem addressed is the relationship of social class to psychological impairment and its mediation. The generic problem is one of locating psychological processes and individual behavior within a societal framework. Recent work focusing on the effects of economic change and unemployment on psychological functioning is examined in relation to studies of the support characteristics of families and social networks pertinent to psychological well-being. An integration of this literature is presented based on the interdependency of stress and support variables and is, in turn, employed in a conceptualization of the relationship between social class and psychological disorder. It is argued that stress and support factors are systematically organized within classes at several levels of analysis and constitute critical conditions of class membership related to psychological functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]