In general, we found that the participants believed that psychiatric disorders are caused primarily by environmental factors, which include mostly stressful life events and circumstances and, to a lesser extent, family upbringing. Still, all the participants acknowledged some genetic contribution to mental illness and felt that genetic research was relevant for psychiatric disorders. Many of the respondents either had a history of being treated for depression and/or substance abuse, or knew someone who did, which may have influenced their ideas of mental illness origins. The medical or disease model, which is typically that endorsed by mental health professionals, does not reject, and in fact may emphasize, the genetic underpinnings of psychiatric disorders (Schneider & Conrad, 1980).
