Sullivan’s

When the satisfaction or the security of another

Interpersonal
person becomes significant to one as one’s own
satisfaction or security, then the state of love
exists. Under no other circumstances is a state of
Theory
love present, regardless of the popular usage of
the term.

- Harry Stack Sullivan -

 I. Biography of Harry Stack Sullivan
II. Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory
Tension
Needs Energy Transformations
Anxiety

Dynamisms

Content Malevolence
Intimacy
Lust
Self-System

Personifications
Bad-Mother , Good-Mother
Me Personifications
Eidetic Personifications
Levels of Cognition
Prototaxic Level Syntatic Level
Parataxic Level
Stages of Development
Infancy Early Adolescence
Childhood Late Adolescence
Juvenile Era Adulthood 2
Pre adolescence
 Childhood Harry’s education

Life experiences that

influenced Harry

Born : February 21, 1892, in the

small farming town in Norwich, New
York
Mother: Ella Stack Sullivan, 32
Father: Timothy Sullivan, 39
Died: January 14, 1949, Paris, France
Cause of Death: Cerebral
Hemorrhage Influence
Career and practice 3
Awards and Award description Award description Award description

recognition
Share the awards and recognition
awarded to him/her.

Award description Award description Award description

4
 ► Believed that people develop their personality
within a social context.

► Without other people, humans would have no

personality.

► Emphasizes the importance of various

developmental stages – infancy, childhood,
juvenile era, preadolescense, early adolescense,
late adolescence, and adulthood.
Legacy ► Healthy human development rests on the ability
Harry Stack Sullivan, first American to establish intimacy with another person, but
to construct a comprehensive unfortunately, anxiety can interfere with satisfying
personality theory called interpersonal relations at any age
Interpersonal Teory
5
 • The sole surviving child of a poor Irish Catholic parents.
• Since the only surviving child, he was pampered and
protected by his mother.
• Father – described as a shy, withdrawn and taciturn
Childhood man who never developed a close relationship with
him until his mother died & Sullivan had become a
prominent physician.
• 8 ½ years old – he formed a close friendship with a 13-
year old boy from a neighboring farm town – Clarence
Bellinger. Both have much in common – socially
retarded but academically advanced.
• The relationship between Harry and Clarence
awakened the power of intimacy – the ability to love
another who was more or less like himself. 6
 • Graduated from highschool as a valedictorian at the
age of 16
• Entered Cornell University intending to become a
physicist, but he also had interest in psychiatry

Education • 1st year in Cornell University was a disaster when got

suspended, speculated that he was probably a dupe of
older, more mature students who used him to pick up
chemicals illegally ordered through the mail.
• For the next 2 years ( 1909 – 1911), he disappeared
mysteriously, speculated that he may have suffered
schizophrenic breakdown & was confined in a mental
hospital.
• 1911 – enrolled at the Chicago College of Medicine and
Surgery. Finished in 1915 but did not receive his degree
until 1917.
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 • Served in the military during World War I (1914 – 1918)
as a medical officer

Career and
• 1921 : with no formal training in psychiatry, he went to
St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington, D.C, where he

Practice
became closely acquainted with William Alanson
White, one of America’s best-known
neuropsychiatrists.
• Worked with large number of schizophrenic patients
• Conducted intensive studies of schizophrenia, which
led to his first hunches about the importance of
interpersonal relationships.
• 1921 – 1949 : Generally, made several acquaintances &
connections in the field of psychiatry and social science
• Served as the first president of the William Alanson
White Psychiatric Foundation in Washington, D.C 8
 His intensive studies on
schizophrenia and the several close
connections he had with other
Awakened the power of intimacy – psychiatrists and social scientists

Influence
the ability to love another who was led him to the formulation of his
more or less like himself. Interpersonal Theory

Childhood  Disappearance 1921 – 1949 (Career

Clarence Bellinger in 1909 - 1911 days)

Sullivan’s biographers speculated

he suffered from schizophrenic
breakdown. Whatever were his
experiences at this time, seemed to
have matured him academically and
sexually.

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 ● People develop their personality in a social
context

Overview ● Without other people, humans have no

personality

Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory ● Development rests on the individual’s ability

to establish intimacy with another person.

● Anxiety can interfere with satisfying

interpersonal relations.

● Healthy development entails experiencing

intimacy and lust towards another same
person.
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 Personality as an energy system

Personality □ Tension – potentiality for action (anxiety,

premonitions, drowsiness, hunger, sexual
excitement; may or may not be experience in
awareness). Two Types – Needs and Anxiety

□ Energy Transformations – actions

themselves (Tensions are either transformed into
either overt or covert actions; behaviours that
satisfy our needs and reduce anxiety; evolves
into Dynamisms
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 ● Tensions brought about by the imbalance by a
biological imbalance between the person and the
environment.

Needs ● Biological component and interpersonal relations

▫ Zonal Needs – arises from a specific body part

▫ General Needs – overall well being of a person

▫ Tenderness is a basic interpersonal need _

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 ● Disjunctive, diffuse and vague, call forth no
consistent action for relief

● Chief disruptive force blocking the development of

Anxiety healthy interpersonal relations

▫ Prevent people from learning from mistakes

▫ Persisting pursuance of childish wish for security

▫ Ensures people will not learn from experience

Its presence is worse than it’s absence.

● Stems from complex interpersonal relations

● Vaguely represented in awareness
● No positive value 13
● Blocks satisfaction of needs
● Transferred through empathy_
 ● Traits or habit patterns

● Major Classes:

Dynamisms ▫ Related to specific zones of the

body (mouth, anus, genitals)

▫ Those related to tensions

Disjunctive (malevolence)
Isolating (lust)
Conjunctive (intimacy, self-
esteem)
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 ● Disjunctive dynamism between evil and
hatred

● Feeling of living among enemies

Malevolence ● 2-3 years , when a child is rebuffed, ignored,
or punished

● Adoption of malevolent attitude for

protection

● Timidity, mischievousness, cruelty, anti-

social behaviour_

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 ● Assumes an isolating tendency
(requiring no other person for its
satisfaction)
Lust
● Auto-erotic behaviour (another person
is the object of one’s lust)

● Hinders an intimate relationship

● Increases anxiety and decreases self-

worth_

● Very powerful during adolescence

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 ● Close interpersonal relationship between
2 people of equal status

● Equal partnership
Intimacy ● Must not be confused with sexual
interests._

● Integrating dynamism that draws out

loving reactions from people

● Decreases loneliness and anxiety

● Rewarding experiences most healthy 17

people desire
 ● Most complex and inclusive of all dynamisms

● Consistent pattern of behaviour that maintains

people’s interpersonal security by protecting them
from anxiety

Self-esteem ● Principal stumbling block to favourable changes in

personality

● It develops earlier than intimacy, at about age 12 –

18 months _

● As the self-system develops, people begin to form

a consistent image of themselves. Thereafter, any
interpersonal experiences which are contrary to their
self-regard , threatens their security
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● Security Operations ( Dissociation & Selective
Inattention)
 Reduces feelings of anxiety and insecurity
Security Two Kinds:
Operations
Dissociation = includes impulses, desires
and needs that a person refuses to allow
into awareness (dreams, daydreams) ;
occurs in an unconscious level

Selective Inattention = refusal to see

things that one does not want to see, but
the person is conscious of it.
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 ● Begins in infancy and continues
throughout development

● People’s images of themselves and others

Personifications
● Three basic personifications that develop
during infancy

▫ Bad Mother – Good Mother

▫ Me

▫ Eidetic Personifications 20
Bad Mother ● Similar to Klein’s concept of Good Breast and
Bad Breast
– Good ● Bad Mother personification grows out of the
Mother infant’s experience of the bad-nipple (the nipple
that does not satisfy hunger)

● Good Mother personification – based on the

tender and cooperative behaviors of the
mothering one.

● These 2 personifications combine to form a

complex personification composed of
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contrasting qualities projected onto the one
person.
 Bad Me, Good Me, Not Me – During midinfancy a
child acquires those three me personifications

Me
Bad Me – results from experiences of punishment
and disapproval that infant receives from their
mothering one

Good Me – results from infants experiences with

reward and approval

Not me – brought about buy sudden severe anxiety

wherein the infant either dissociate or selectively
inattend to that anxiety. This becomes a not me
shadowy personifications encountered during
adulthood.
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 ● Imaginary friends maybe as significant to a
Eidetic child’s development as real playmates

Personification ● Eidetic Personification however are not

limited to children, most adults see fictitious
traits in other people.

● Eidetic personification can create conflict

in interpersonal relations when people project
onto others imaginary traits.

● Can hinder communication and prevent

23
people from functioning on the same level of
cognition
 ● Refers to ways of perceiving, imagining, and
Levels of conceiving

Cognition ▫ Prototaxic = undifferentiated experiences

which are highly personal

▫ Parataxic = communicated to others in a

distorted fashion

▫ Syntaxic = consensually validated and

symbolically communicated

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 Stages of
Development
Interpersonal Theory

25
 ● All psychological disorders have an
interpersonal origin and must be understood
Psychological with reference to the social environment.

Disorders
● Psychological difficulties are not unique,
but come from same interpersonal
difficulties we all face.

● Two broad classes of Schizophrenia

▫ Organic
26
▫ Situational
 ● Therapist is a participant observer who
establishes an interpersonal relationship with
the patient and provides opportunity for
Psychotherapy syntaxic communication.

● Sullivanian therapists attempt to help

patients develop foresight, discover
difficulties in interpersonal relations, and
restore their ability to participate in
consensually validated experiences

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