[Stressful life events: models and methodology. Critical considerations]

Many recent studies tend to show that life events play an important role in provoking, solving or maintaining psychic troubles. The proposed approach is interesting as far as it brings back into the model many psychosocial factors implied in psychic or somatic problems. We wanted to review the interest of the main theoretical and methodological approaches in that field and also to stress their drawbacks. One many improve the life events approach by taking into account the difficulties associated with that type of research and by avoiding an oversimplification of the relationship between life events and health. The links are complex, the impact of life events results from depressive mechanisms, adjustment strategies, social support, age, sex, personality, history, past experience and sociocultural representations. This complex picture compels clinicians to take a complementarist attitude when all the theories are scrutinized in order to understand the links between life events and health. From a methodological point of view, the most relevant approach seems to be the combination of standardized scales and semi-structured interviews allowing a contextual approach of events.