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

Content
Dynamisms
Malevolence Lust
IntimacySelf-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 2
Juvenile Era Adulthood
Pre adolescence
 Childhood experiences Harry’s education

-Since the only surviving child, he was -Graduated from highschool as a valedictorian at
the age of 16.

Life
pampered and protected by his mother.
-College, he disappeared mysteriously,
-8 ½ years old – he formed a close speculated that he may have suffered
friendship with a 13-year old boy from a schizophrenic breakdown & was confined in a
neighboring farm town – Clarence mental hospital.

Born : February 21, 1892, in the small Bellinger. Both have much in common – -Enrolled at the Chicago College of Medicine and
socially retarded but academically Surgery. Finished in 1915 but did not receive his
farming town in Norwich, New York advanced. degree until 1917.

Mother: Ella Stack Sullivan, 32

Father: Timothy Sullivan, 39
Died: January 14, 1949, Paris, France
Career and Practice Legacy
Cause of Death: Cerebral Hemorrhage
-Served in the military during World War I as -Without other people, humans would
a medical officer have no personality.
-Emphasizes the importance of various
-Conducted intensive studies of developmental stages – infancy, childhood, 3
schizophrenia, which led about the juvenile era, preadolescense, early
importance of interpersonal relationships. adolescense, late adolescence, and
-First president of the William Alanson White adulthood.
Psychiatric Foundation in Washington, D.C
 ● People develop their personality in a social context

● Without other people, humans have no personality

Overview ● Development rests on the individual’s ability to

establish intimacy with another person.
Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory
● 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
Concept of
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 Once satisfied they lose their power.

● Types od Needs:

▫ 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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 ● A feeling of unease, such as worry or fear, that can
be mild or severe. Everyone has feelings of anxiety at
some point in their life.
● It force blocking the development of healthy
Anxiety interpersonal relations

▫ non-productive

▫ disintegrative behevior

• People avoid anxiety and prefer it to Euphoria

(Lack of tension)

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 ● patterns of behavior

● 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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 ● 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_
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● Very powerful during adolescence
 ● 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 11

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

18 months .

● It’s like a warning system for anxiety, it’s primary

task is to protect people against anxiety.
These measures to protect us is called “security
operations”

● Security Operations ( Dissociation & Selective

Inattention)
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 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 14
 ● Bad Mother personification grows out of the
Bad Mother – infant’s experience of the bad-nipple (the nipple
that does not satisfy hunger)
Good Mother ● 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
contrasting qualities projected onto the one
person.
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 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
child’s development as real playmates
Eidetic
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

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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

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 ● 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
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▫ 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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