Is Another kind of Biologization Possible? On Biology and the psy Sciences

Bibliographic Data

ID5851908
AuthorsBrinkmann (0000-0001-7579-1212, Aalborg University, corresponding author), Rasmus Birk (0000-0003-3740-4765, Aalborg University), Peter Clement Lund (0000-0002-9851-0003, Aalborg University)
Year2023
Volume57
Issue3
Pages719-737
Publication date2023-03-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIntegrative Psychological and Behavioral Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1932-4502 • E-ISSN: 1936-3567
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s12124-023-09757-0
PMID36988862
OpenAlexW4361304272
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited44

The relationship between biology and the psy disciplines (psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy) is a complex one. Many scholars have criticized how these disciplines have been biologized in the 20th century, especially since the emergence of psychopharmacology, neuroscience, and genetic research. However, biology is not just a laboratory-based science of chemical compounds, scanners, and DNA sequencing, but also a field science based on observations of organisms in their milieus. In this paper, we draw a contrast between laboratory-based biology with a focus on brains and genes, and an ecology-based biology with a focus on lives and niches. Our argument is philosophical in nature - building partly on Wittgenstein as a "philosopher of life" - to the effect that the psy sciences need not just less biologization of the former kind, but also more biologization of the latter kind to avoid a prevalent mentalism. Not least when it comes to an understanding of psychological distress, which can favorably be viewed situationally and coupled to human lives in ecological niches

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