Biological And Psychoanalytic Perspectives In Psychology

What are the core assumptions and key features of the biological and psychoanalytic perspectives in psychology? In what ways are they similar and how do they differ?

The biological perspective within psychology aims to explain behaviours using scientific reason, as oppose to formulating unsubstantiated beliefs. Biological psychology may be seen as a point of view in which the reasons behind how we think, and act are attributed to physiological mechanisms such as brain functioning (Kalat, 2016, pg. 5). Early psychological views had a dualist outlook, including those of Rene Descartes who strongly believed that the body and soul are separate, holding the notion that it was through the pineal gland that the soul affected the body (Hunt, 1993,

As previously mentioned, historically, people like Julien de La Mettrie have battled as to whether materialism or dualism should be referred to when viewing scientific processes. Kalat (2016 pg 449) defines materialism as the view that everything that exists is either material or physical which would suggest that the notion of having souls, a non-physical aspect of humans, would be an unscientific view. Glassman and Hadad (2014 pg 41) express how Paul Broca’s demonstration of localisation of function in the brain (1861) furthered the materialist view of behaviour coming from physiology rather than an ‘intangible soul’. The extent of the materialist belief has continued to grow, now being a strongly held belief among biologists, in the 19th Century Helmholtz and some of his students upheld this belief to the point of signing an oath in their blood; the oath expressing that there are no forces other than common physical-chemical ones and that should a behaviour not be easily explained this is due to a new force (Bernfeld, 1949 as cited by Hergenhahn,

As a Jew, it would be assumed that Freud would naturally have dualist beliefs, if this is the case such beliefs are most evident within the idea of Eros and Thanatos, the life and death instincts. According to Brown (1991), the life instinct (Eros) incorporates the old libido concept and the self-preservartion part of the drive whilst the death drive is the innate destructive side being primarily against the self. When discussing the two classes of instincts Freud et al (1991) suggest that when answering questions as to the goals and purpose of life the answer would be dualist. Georgescu (2011) suggests that Freud did support a dualistic view of life and death drives, believing the death drive to be the primary force of life and giving it an active role within the organisation of the psyche; this could be assumed to be equivalent to the soul thus suggesting the approach truly is