Genetic and learning factors as major substrata for age-related psychopathological symptoms: concerning the question of a psychology of age.

The various episodes of life significant for outbursts of different psychic disorders may give some facilitations of a better understanding of the underlying basic processes. Two of them are considered in several appearances: genetic predisposition and conditioning processes. A psychology of age may be interpreted in a stronger sense as a collision of these two conditions. Surprisingly, the age at onset of some psychic disorders is relatively early in life. This means that we should make every effort to comprehend vulnerability in terms of biological as well as psychological compounds earlier; it could carry on to surrender the dichotomy of biological and psychological factors and to combine different standpoints in a general view which inaugurates therapeutic and prophylactic consequences, too.