(biology, sociology) Of or pertaining to both biological and social features.
1974, Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., The Myth of Mental Illness Chapter 12, The social situation in which a person lives constitutes the team on which he plays and is, therefore, important in deter- mining who he is and how he acts. Man's so-called instinctual needs are actually shaped—and this may include inhibiting, fostering, or even creating "needs"—by the social games prevalent in his milieu. The view of a dual, biosocial determi- nation of behavior has become incorporated into psychoana- lytic theory through increasing emphasis on ego psychology and object relationships. Useful as these modifications of classical psychoanalytic theory have been, explanations in terms of ego functions are not as satisfactory for either theory or therapy as those couched in terms of rules, roles, and games.
