This second edition ofPrinciples of Social Psychiatry appears more than 15 years after the first one, and even a cursory comparison between the contents of the two editions clearly documents that the scope and the impact of the social component of our discipline and profession have remarkably increased during the past few years. There is now a more widespread awareness of the role of social risk factors even in the aetiology of mental disorders that had been traditionally perceived to be mostly biological in their causation. Schizophrenia is a good example. The research evidence concerning the association between some social factors – such as urbanicity and a history of migration – and the likelihood of developing a psychotic condition is now quite robust, and there is also some evidence of a synergy between these factors and familial liability in the causation of the disorder. Also increasing is awareness of the impact of social factors on the identification and the diagnosis of menta
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