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[[Lacan]], however, is strongly opposed to any attempt to construct [[psychoanalysis]] upon a [[biological ]] model, arguing that the direct application of [[biological ]] (or ethological/psychological) concepts (such as [[adaptation]]) to [[psychoanalysis]] will inevitably be misleading and will obliterate the essential distinction between [[nature]] and [[:category:culture|culture]].  

 [[Lacan ]] sees this '[[biologism]]' in the work of those [[psychoanalysts]] who have confused [[desire]] with [[need]], and [[drives]] with [[instincts]], concepts which he insists on distinguishing.

In his 1938 work on the [[family]], for example, he rejects any attempt to explain [[family]] [[structure]]s on the basis of purely [[biological]] data, and argues that [[human]] [[psychology]] is regulated by [[complex]]es rather than by [[instinct]]s.<ref>Lacan, 1938: 23-4</ref> [[Lacan]] argues that his refusal of [[biological ]] reductionism is not a contradiction of [[Freud]] but a [[return]] to the essence of [[Freud]]'s work.  When [[Freud]] used [[biological ]] models, he did so simply because [[biology]] was at that time a model of scientific rigour in general, and because the conjectural [[science]]s had not then achieved the same degree of rigour.  

 For example, the concept of the [[death instinct]] "is not a question of biology."<ref>{{E, }} p.102</ref>  [[Lacan]] expresses his point with a [[paradox]]: "Freudian biology has nothing to do with biology."<ref>{{S2, }} p.75</ref> [[Lacan]], like [[Freud]], uses concepts borrowed from [[biology]], and then reworks them in an entirely [[symbolic ]] framework.

 This has been one of the main attractions of Lacanian [[Lacan]]ian theory for certain [[:category:feminist theory|feminist]] writers who have seen it as a way of constructing a [[essentialism|non-essentialist]] account of gendered [[subjectivity]].

However, while [[Lacan]] consistently rejects all forms of [[biological ]] reductionism, he also rejects the culturalist position which completely ignores the relevance of [[biology]].<ref>{{Ec, }} p.723</ref>. If 'biologising' is understood correctly (that is, not as the reduction of psychic phenomena to crude biological determination, but as discerning the precise way in which biological data impact on the psychical field), then [[Lacan ]] is all in favour of biologising thought.<ref>{{Ec, }} p.723</ref> The clearest examples of this are [[Lacan]]'s appeals to examples from animal ethology to demonstrate the power of images to act as releasing mechanisms; hence [[Lacan]]'s references to pigeons and locusts in his account of the [[mirror stage]]<ref>{{E, }} p.3</ref>, and to crustaceans in his account of mimicry.<ref>{{Sll}} p.99</ref> Thus in his account of [[sexual difference]], [[Lacan]] follows [[Freud]]'s rejection of the false dichotomy between "anatomy or convention."<ref>Freud, 1933a: SE XXII, 99114</ref>

Thus in his account of [[sexual differenceLacan]], Lacan follows Freud's rejection of the false dichotomy between "anatomy or convention."<ref>Freud, 1933a: SE XXII, 114</ref> Lacan's concern is not to privilege either term but to show how both interact in complex ways in the process of assuming a sexual position.

* [[natureNature]]