Psychology Essay Example: How Does the Biological Perspective Explain Andrea Yate's Actions?

The case study of Andrea Yates is one that caused many controversies.  She is a mother to five children and a wife to Rusty Yates. After suddenly drowning all of her children, she got sentenced for life in jail. Leading up to this crime includes past occurrences in Andrea’s life which later on affected her greatly. This consists of several psychological causes, and although the cognitive approach illustrates Andrea Yates’ action from believing the reason for her doing is that the devil is after her and her children, the biological approach is more efficient as she could’ve inherited genetics that involves mental illness and the medication/drugs she was prescribed creating chemical imbalances in her brain. 

Written by Kendra Cherry, a biological perspective is an approach to viewing psychological situations of observing the physical foundation of human behavior. This significant perspective in psychology contains factors such as examining the brain and genetics.  Briefly, what has people to act biologically is their genetics and their brain overall.  As stated by Cherry, the psychological components to this perspective correspond with how physical injury, in other words, damage to the brain controls actions, exploring how to deteriorate brain conditions affects how individuals behave, analyzing how trauma and genetics are connected to mental illness, and most importantly, in this case, investigating how genetic aspects lead to, for instance, aggression. Furthermore, violent behaviors specifically are biologically viewed as the brain damage and genetic elements that cause aggression. (Cherry, 2021) 

What could’ve influenced Andrea Yates is her genetics. Having genes that led to her depression plays a huge role in her feeling the sudden need to drown all five of her children. It has been discovered that depression indeed runs in her family. Noted by Dr. Lucy Parker, she confirmed that there’s a higher risk for women if there are family members that have witnessed depression, postpartum psychosis. (Parker, 2015). Moreover, with postpartum psychosis (depression) that she got passed on after giving birth to her five children,  based on Sage Journals the biological function of postpartum psychosis (depression)  is the postpartum time frame creates alters in the endocrine in terms of adapting. This revolves around coping with the adjustments after giving birth and nursing, which may direct to postpartum psychosis (depression) rise in women.  This after reaches to her eventually feeling guilty and having thoughts on taking her life.  This relates to Andrea Yates as her genes include mental illness, particularly postpartum psychosis or depression when she gave birth it triggered from the endocrine adaptation increasing her depression to the point where she felt guilt and the reason to attempt to commit suicide. This had her lose control and to the moment where she felt she had to drown all her children.  

Another influence on Andrea Yate's offense is the medications/drugs she was prescribed to take.  Her taking a pill that has chemicals could create chemical imbalances in her brain when she takes them or even stops taking them. Proven by Faith Mcllelas, informed that after Andrea was dismissed from the hospital, her psychiatrist started to stop her prescription of a medication/drug called antipsychotic drug.  Rusty wanted to continue after weeks, where she was diminished, while Mclellan denied that request as it was considered to be a “bad medicine,” (Mclellan, 2006). According to CNN, weeks before Andrea drowned all her children, she quit taking her medication, the antipsychotic drug, as she desired to have her fifth child. This had her gradually become worse than when she stopped being on her medication, it created a chemical imbalance in her brain, having her turn out worse and in an even worse condition with time. Her ending up in a poor state also involves the drug having a bad reaction on her.  This is a possible reason to Andrea Yates being attracted to the thought of drowning her children, the chemical imbalance in her brain highly pushed her to that extent. 

The second perspective known as the cognitive perspective is an approach that concentrates on the way people think. This variety of psychology examines a wide range of mental procedures involving people's thoughts, language utilization, management to knowledge, and awareness of their settlement at a science view.  This is informed by verywellmind and how this perspective incorporates the analysis of the mental techniques. These contributions are insights, attention, thoughts, language, memory, problem-solving, and studying of the brain. Additionally, studying more of the way individuals think, and taking information of the deeper understanding of the human brain functions.  The cognitive approach is mainly the process of thoughts and interpretation in a human's brain.  

Cognition attributed to Andrea Yates’ persuasion towards drowning all five of her children because of Satan and devil thoughts, along with the way she’s been interpreting those reflections.