Harry Stack Sullivan’s (1892 – 1949) Interpersonal Theory - Most basic interpersonal

need
 Brief Information - Requires action from at least
Name: Harry Stack Sullivan 2 people
Place of birth: Norwich, New York - Infant: to receive
Date of birth: February 21, 1892 - Mothering one: to give
Religion: Catholic ii. Physiological Needs (e.g. oxygen,
Occupation: American Psychiatrist food, etc.)
Mother’s name: Ella Stack Sullivan b) Zonal Needs (oral, genital, manual)
Father’s name: Timothy Sullivan
Date of Death: January 14, 1949 2. Anxiety
Cause of death: heart attack/cerebral hemorrhage - Disjunctive, vague and calls forth no consistent
actions for its relief
 Some Events - Chief disruptive force blocking the
 His mother protected him after the death of two development of healthy interpersonal relations
other sons. - Transferred from the mothering one to the
 His father was a shy and withdrawn farm infant through empathy
laborer/factory worker who did not speak to him - Signs of anxiety may cause the mother to
until his mother died and he became a physician. misunderstand it as needs
 On Harry’s 3rd birthday, her mother mysteriously - Prevent people from learning from their
went missing from home. mistakes
 Sullivan had a lonely and isolated childhood. - Keeps people pursuing childish wish for
 At 8 ½ years old, he formed a close friendship to a security
13-year-old boy named Clarence Bellinger.
 He graduated high school at age 16. B. Energy Transformations
 Undergraduate: Cornell University - Tensions that are transformed into overt or covert
actions
 Medicine Degree: Chicago College of Medicine and
- Behaviors that are aimed at satisfying needs and
Surgery
reducing anxiety
 Medical officer during and after World War I.
 St. Elizabeth Hospital: worked with a large number
C. Dynamisms
of patients with schizophrenia
- Key concept in Sullivan’s overall personality theory
 Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital: He was called
- Typical behavior patterns that are organized from
the “clinical wizard”
energy transformations
 James Inscoe: remained with Sullivan for 22 years; - Smallest unity of study in interpersonal
his last name was changed to Sullivan and was relationships
treated like his own son. - Pattern of behavior that endures and recurs, as
such it may be equated to habit
 Basic Tenet - 2 classes:
It emphasized the importance of interpersonal  Related to the body (e.g. mouth, anus, genitals)
relations; Personality is shaped almost entirely by
 Related to tensions (disjunctive, isolating,
the relationships we have with other people.
conjunctive)
 Sullivan’s Theory of Personality 1. Malevolence
> Sullivan saw personality as an energy system < - Disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred
A. Tensions - Feeling of living among one’s enemies
- Potential for action - Take the form of timidity,
- May or may not be experienced in awareness mischievousness, cruelty of other kinds of
asocial/antisocial behavior
1. Needs - Trust is affected in latter stages of not
- Tensions brought on by biological imbalance resolved
both inside and outside the organism - “Once upon a time everything was lovely,
- Episodic in nature: when satisfied, it will but that was before I had to deal with
temporarily lose its power then recur after people”
some time 2. Lust
a) General Needs - Isolating tendency
i. Interpersonal Needs - Immediate goal: genital sexual activity
 Tenderness
 - Requiring no other person for its - Consensually validated conceptions that are
satisfaction widely accepted by members of society handed
- Manifests itself as autoerotic behavior down from generation to generation
even when another person is the object of
it 1. Good-mother; bad-mother personifications
- Powerful during adolescence a) Good-mother
- Reduction of self-esteem - Tender and cooperative behaviors of the
- Hinders intimate relationships mothering one
3. Conjunctive b) Bad-mother
- Positive and conjunctive dynamism - Infant’s personification of not being fed
- Grows out of the earlier need for - Nipple that does not satisfy hunger of the
tenderness infant
- Involves a close relationship between two c) Overprotective mother
people who are more or less of equal - Stems from the mother’s anxiety
status 2. Me personifications
- Must not be confused with sexual interest a) Bad-me personification
- Integrating dynamism that tends to draw - Punishment and disapproval
out loving reactions from the other person - Negative aspects of the self
- Rewarding experience that most health - Hidden from others and possibly from the
people desire self
b) Good-me personification
Self-System - Reward and approval
- Most complex and inclusive of all - Mother’s expression and approval
dynamisms - Everything that we like about ourselves
- Consistent pattern of behaviors that c) Not-me personification
maintains people’s interpersonal security - Caused by sudden severe anxiety
by protecting them from anxiety - So anxiety-provoking, we cannot even
- Develops at about 12 – 18 months of age consider them to be a part of us
- (+): serves as a signal, alerting people to - Adults: dreams, schizophrenic episodes
increasing anxiety and giving them an and other dissociative reactions
opportunity to protect themselves Personified self – single, integrated self-image
- (-): resistant to change and prevent people 3. Eidetic personifications
from profiting from anxiety-filled - Unrealistic traits or imaginary friends that
experiences many children invent in order to protect their
- People form a consistent image of self-esteem
themselves - Adults: see fictional traits in others
 Security Operations - Hinder communication and prevent people
- To reduce feelings of insecurity or from functioning on the same level of cognition
anxiety that result from endangered
self-esteem E. Levels of Cognition
a) Dissociation 1. Prototaxic level
- Impulses, desires and needs that - Impossible to communicate
a person refuses to allow into - Earliest and most primitive experience of an
awareness infant
b) Selective Inattention - Beyond conscious recall
- Control of focal awareness and - “stream of consciousness”
refusal to see those things that 2. Parataxic level
we do not wish to see - Usually results when a person assumes a
cause-and-effect relationship between two
D. Personifications events that occur coincidentally
- Images that one has of himself or of another - Prelogical and personal experiences that are
- Complex web of feelings, attitudes and conceptions communicated in distorted form
that grows out of experiences with need 3. Syntaxic level
satisfaction and anxiety - Meaningful interpersonal communication
- May be relatively accurate or distorted depending - Consensually validated experiences and can be
on our needs and anxieties symbolically communicated
 Stereotypes - Formal language
- Personifications shared by a number of people
 Stages of Development
STAGE AGE SIGNIFICANT INTERPERSONAL PROCESS IMPORTANT LEARNINGS
OTHERS
Infancy 0–2 Mothering one Tenderness Good/Bad
Childhood 2–6 Parents Imaginary playmates Synataxic language
Juvenile Era 6–8½ Playmates of equal Living with peers Competition, compromise,
status cooperation
Preadolescence 8 ½ – 13 Single chum Intimacy Affection and respect from peers
Early Adolescence 13 – 15 Several chums Intimacy and lust toward Balance of lust, intimacy and
different persons security operations
Late Adolescence 15 – Lover Fusion of intimacy and lust Discovery of self and world

1. Infancy  Compromise – giving in, when overdone, will

- Birth until when the child develops handicap the child in the socialization process
articulate/syntaxic speech  Cooperation – critical step to becoming
- First anxiety: nursing situation and the oral zone socialized
- Oral zone: primary zone of interaction between the - Orientation toward living: readies a person for
baby and its environment deeper interpersonal relationships to follow
- Apathy and somnolent detachment: built-in
protections to keep the baby from dying 4. Preadolescence
- Autistic language: private language that makes no - Personality transformation because of taking interst
sense to other people in another person
2. Childhood - “genesis of the capacity to love”
- Period of acculturation (how to act) - Intimacy and love: essence of friendship
- Personifications of the mother are fused into one as - Most untroubled and carefree time of life
well as me-personifications (single self-dynamism) - Characterized with unselfish love not yet
- Labelling good or bad is now because of social or contaminated by lust
moral value and not anymore based on the anxiety - Most crucial stage of development
of the child - Chums: able to express self without fear of
- Mother-child relationship becomes personal humiliation
- 2 important processes: - Intimacy: relationship between two partners
a) Dramatizations – attempts to act like authority consensually validating one another’s personal
figures worth
b) Preoccupations – remain occupied with an - Love: exists when the satisfaction/security of
activity that has earlier proved useful or another person becomes a significant to one as in
rewarding one’s own satisfaction/security
 Imaginary friends 5. Early Adolescence
- Eidetic friend - Marked by the eruption of genital interest and the
- Enables children to have a safe, secure advent of lustful relationships
relationship that produces little anxiety - Conflict of intimacy, lust and security operations
- Sign of a positive event that helps children  Lust vs security operations: genital activity =
become ready for intimacy with real friends anxiety, guilt and embarrassment
during the preadolescence stage  Intimacy vs security operations: self-doubt,
 During preschool years: uncertainty and ridicule (low self-esteem, high
- Malevolent attitude anxiety)
- Evolved self-dynamism to handle anxiety  Intimacy vs lust: powerful genital tensions seek
better]the self-system introduces much outlet without regard for intimacy needs
stability that it makes future changes very - Lust dynamism: biological
difficult - Turning point in personality development
3. Juvenile Era 6. Late Adolescence
- Playmates are of equal status - Period of self-discovery
- Able to make discriminations - People of the other gender are viewed as people
- Learnings: who are capable of being loved nonselfishly
 Competition – to be successful - Includes a growing syntaxic mode
(overemphasized) - Begin exchanging ideas with others and having their
opinions and beliefs either validated or repudiated
 - Only the mature person has the capacity to love;  Critique
others merely go through the motions of being “in Strengths:
love” in order to maintain security - Asserted the importance of society and interaction
7. Adulthood on personality
- A period when people can establish a love - Emphasized the concept of the self
relationship with at least one significant person - Focused on the interpersonal rather than
- Developed intimacy: principal source of satisfaction psychosexual
in life
- Beyond the scope of interpersonal psychiatry Weaknesses:
- Characteristics of people in this stage: - Intense concern for working for a world free of
 Operate predominantly on the syntaxic level tensions and conflicts
 Find life interesting and exciting - Concept of self grows out of the “reflected
appraisal” of others
 Psychiatric interview - Merely elaborated Freud’s ego and defenses
 Psychiatry
- The study of processes involve or go on between  References:
people Morgan, J.H. (2014). The Interpersonal Psychotherapy of
- The field of interpersonal relations, under any and Harry Stack Sullivan: Remembering the Legacy. J Psychol
all circumstances in which relations exist Psychother. 4(6): 162. DOI: 10.4172/2161-0487.1000162
 Interview – interpersonal, face-to-face situation that Feist, J. & Feist, G.J. (2008). Theories of Personality (7th ed.).
takes place between patient and therapist pp. 212-241. USA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
 Interviewer’s role Tria, G.E. & Limpingco, D.A. (2016). Personality (4th ed.). pp.
- Participant observer 77-83. Quezon City, PH: Pantas Publishing & Printing
- Helps patients give up some security in dealing with Inc.
other people and to realize that they can achieve
mental health only through consensually validated
personal relations
- Communicate on the syntaxic level to reduce
anxiety
- Avoid getting involved with patients
- Convince patients of expert abilities

 Stages of interview
1. Formal Inception
- Vocal communication between patient and
therapist
- Promotes confidence in the patient by
demonstrating interpersonal skills
- Patient express reasons for seeking therapy
2. Period of Reconnaissance
- Finding out who the patient is
- General personal and social history is
established
- Open-ended questions are asked to invite the
patient to feel free to express the patient’s
emotional state at the time
3. Detailed Inquiry
- Attempt to know which among the formulated
hypotheses during the first two stages is more
substantial
4. Termination Stage
- Interviewer makes an assessment of what
he/she learned and prescribes a course for the
patient to follow including its effects
- Gives he client “homework”