Why We Need a Biopsychosocial Perspective with Vulnerable, Oppressed, and At-Risk Clients

Abstract

This article considers why we need to take a biopsychosocial perspective in assessment and treatment of individuals. Using psychological concepts drawn from drive theory, ego psychology, object relations, attachment theory, self psychology and relational theory, the author makes explicit the need to connect these ideas with social and biological contexts. Arguing that psychodynamic theories contain the social as well as the psychological, the author traces Freud's social commitments, the role of critical race theory, the importance of social contexts in shaping development while also considering the effects of neglect, trauma and abuse on the developing brain. Holding in mind all of these positions, is what makes clinical social work truly the impossible profession.

Keywords:

• drive theory
• ego psychology
• average expectable environment
• object relations
• self psychology
• relational enactments
• critical race theory
• social contexts in which clients are seen
• stress hormones
• trauma
• abuse and brain development

Notes

From Falling Through the Cracks edited by Joan Berzoff. Copyright © 2011 Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.