Progress in the methods of assessment of adverse experience, together with developments in measures of the longitudinal course of diagnosable psychiatric disorder, have provided an increasingly ยฎrm foundation for enabling a clearer understanding of the relationship between social stress and mental health and for identifying factors that inยฏuence that relationship. This article addresses two substantive issues within this research area that have beneยฎted from these advances in longitudinal methodology: ยฎrstly, the investigation of the speciยฎcity of psychiatric response to adverse experience, and secondly, the extent to which long-term vulnerability or resilience to the recurrence of major aective disorder appears to be conferred through individual dierence attributes. These issues will be informed by the results from two studies that included detailed clinical course assessments based upon the Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation in association with the formal application of diagnostic criteria. For the ยฎrst study, two groups of women were studied through their common adverse experience of either their husband's non-fatal myocardial infarction (MI) or their husband's death. Interviews were completed with 64 bereaved women and 143 women shortly following their partner's MI. Follow-up interviews were completed about 3 months following the initial interview. Results will be presented concerning the mental health of the women during the study and the nature of that response. The second study was based upon a 12-year longitudinal follow-up of 80 patients with a primary depressive disorder, originally selected from a consecutive series seeking care at a hospital in Scotland. Preliminary results will be presented concerning the relationship between a measure of self-appraisal, completed on recovery from their inception episode, and the subsequent recurrence of aective disorder. The signiยฎcance of the results for a psychosocial model of depression will be discussed.