It is clear that whatever the conceptual problems with understanding mental illness in the same way as physical illness, the social impact of lower social class (in especially the poverty associated with it) is similar for everyone. Basically, poorer people are in poorer health, both physical and mental, than richer people. However, it is more problematic to assert that there are social causes for specific diagnosed pathologies (such as “schizophrenia”). This says more about the low construct validity of the diagnoses used by psychiatry than about the stress created for people by socio-economic factors..