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The Ecology of Mental Disease

A Dissertation on the Influence of Environmental Factors in the Distribution, Development and Variation of Mental Disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

E. H. Hare
E. H. Hare*
Affiliation:
Barrow Hospital, Barrow Gurney, nr. Bristol
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Extract

The word “oecology “was coined by Hacckel in 1869, and the study of the complex interactions between organisms and their environment led to fruitful results first in botany (at the beginning of the twentieth century) and later in zoology. In 1935 Bews formulated the principles of human ecology, but the precise boundaries of this discipline (as Banks (1905a) calls it, since it cannot be called a science) are still not the subject of any general agreement. Its dictionary definition as “that branch of biology which deals with the relations of human beings to their surroundings, their habits and modes of life,” although simple for the purposes of formulation, is probably too diffuse in practice. On the other hand, Miller (1950), in suggesting that the ecological study of disorders should be confined to their distribution in the purely demographic sense, seems unduly to restrict its application. There is a tendency among American ecologists (who have been the pioneers of this subject) to take a middle course. Park (1936) conceives of human ecology as the study of the community in terms of the competitive forces which mould it, as opposed to the cultural forces which make for social co-operation. Similarly, Faris (1944) distinguishes the ecological order, which arises automatically and unintentionally out of the struggle for survival, from the cultural order, which is based on mutual affection and sentiment.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 98 , Issue 413 , October 1952 , pp. 579 - 594
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1952 

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