Life History Research in Psychopathology is Like a Dog Walking on Its Hind Legs or Discussion of Chapters 12–15

Abstract

One of the important lessons that Dr. Clausen’s study provides for our understanding of psychopathology is that the long-term course of true first admissions in a chronic illness is very different than the prognosis for admissions per se. At present long-term follow-up studies of psychopathology are analogous to two-legged walking by dogs. Thus, two groups of same-aged women revealed different degrees of psychopathology at two very different periods in history. Changes in popular attitude toward the role of women in society appear to offer a possible explanation. Thus, most of the comparisons that Clausen makes may well are due to chance differences. Just as longitudinal studies must demand rigor in reducing attrition, so they must strive for samples large enough to allow tests for statistical significance. In many ways, the follow-up studies by him and his colleagues on the “Iowa 500” represent as fruitful and as welldesigned a model as we have of the follow-back strategy in longitudinal studies.