With these findings in hand, the pieces begin to fit together. Stress, particularly in the form of extremes of lack of control and outlets, causes an array of deleterious changes in a person. Cognitively, this involves a distortive belief that there is no control or outlets in any circumstance-learned helplessness. On the affective level, there is anhedonia; behaviorally, there is psychomotor retardation. On the neurochemical level, there are likely disruptions of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine signaling—as will be shown in chapter 16, prolonged stress can deplete dopamine in the
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