Harry Stack Sullivan

Ruqiya
1st year Msc clinical and counselling psychology
Biography
• Harry Stack Sullivan was the only child
of a poor Irish farmer, belonging to the
farming community of Norwich, New
York.
• Born on 21 February 1892, his
childhood was lonely and his
companions were mute animals who he
couldn’t share his thoughts with.
• His mother was also distant and was
dissatisfied with the poor economic
situation of the household and did not
give him much affection.
• His approach to psychiatry focused on the social factors that contribute
to the one’s personality development.
• He talked about the significance of the early parent-child relationship
as a quest for security by the child and not with a sexual orientation,
which Freud had emphasized on.
• It is here that one can see Sullivan's own childhood experiences
determining the direction of his professional thought
Contributions
• Much of Sullivan's work centered on understanding interpersonal
relationships, and his research became the basis for a field of psychology
known as interpersonal psychoanalysis.
• Sullivan's interpersonal psychoanalysis suggests that the way people
interact with others could provide valuable clues into their mental health
and that mental health disorders may stem from distressing interpersonal
interactions.
• Sullivan steadfastly tried to avoid stigmatizing mental health patients,
preferring to refer to mental health disorders as “problems in living.”
Core concepts of theory
1. Tension
• Needs •Anxiety
2. Constituents of personality
• Dynamics • personification
3. Levels of cognition
4. Stages of development
 Tension
Sullivan saw personality as an energy system, in which energy exists either as
energy transformations (the actions themselves) or as tension (potentiality for
action). The latter is further sub-divided into needs and anxiety.
Needs
• Needs can be related either to the general well-being or to specific zones in
one's body such as the genitals or mouth.
• General needs can be of two types- interpersonal; tenderness and intimacy
and physiological; food or oxygen.
Anxiety
• Anxiety is usually termed as state of emotional discomfort or distress and
behavior is aimed to relieve or reduce this feeling of being anxious.
• Sullivan described anxiety as a disruptive force in interpersonal relations.
He also said that anxiety acts as the main factor in the development of
momentous difficulties in living.
 Constituents of Personality
Personality is a product of interpersonal relationship with other persons. Personality
is a relatively enduring pattern or configuration of repeatedly occurring interpersonal
situations that characterize life.
i) Dynamisms: Sullivan used the concept of dynamism to refer to a typical pattern of one's behavior.
The basic needs of an organism are satisfied by these dynamisms. These are of four different types-
a) Malevolence:
• The disjunctive or severed dynamism of hatred, evil and nefarious feelings is called malevolence.
Sullivan explains this as perception of living among enemies.
• Children who become malevolent face problems with providing and accepting tenderness or being
affectionate and loving. This originates during late infancy or early childhood as a result of harsh
parental interactions.
b) Intimacy:
• The conjunctive or cooperative dynamism tends to occur in a close relationship between two
people of equal status. This relation is called intimacy and it smoothens the process of interpersonal
development while it helps in reducing both anxiety and loneliness.
• It manifests during pre-adolescence in the establishment of special friends.
c) Lust
• Lust is an isolating dynamism that is in opposition to both the previous types; malevolence
and intimacy.
• Lust is a self-centred need because even in absence of an intimate relationship, it can be
satisfied.
• Intimacy assumes tenderness or love and in contrast, lust does not require another person for
its satisfaction as it is based solely on sexual gratification.
• It originates in pre-adolescence, and leads to reduction in self-esteem anxiety.
d) Self-System
• Self-system is an inclusive form of dynamism. It is a pattern of behaviors, which protect us
from anxious thoughts and also helps to maintain our interpersonal security.
• The self-system tends to suppress the personality change because its main function is to
safeguard the self from anxiety.
• We tend to behave in a certain way in order to reduce interpersonal tensions. One such
security operation is dissociation. Selective inattention is also a security operation and
involves blocking only certain experiences from our awareness.
 Personifications
Subjective perceptions that people acquire of self and others throughout the stages of
development. These perceptions may not always be accurate and can be distorted as well.
 Bad-mother, good-mother Me personification Eidetic personification

These develop from an infant's The infant develops three types of He observed that people create and
experiences. personifications of himself. project imaginary traits on to others.

When a nipple that does not satisfy an • The bad-me, when a person's These eidetic personifications include
infant's hunger needs, the bad-mother behaviour is disapproved of and the imaginary friends that preschool-
personification develops. considered unworthy. aged children often have.
All infants experience the bad-mother • The good-me, when his behavior is Even though these playmates are
personification whether or not their accepted and praised. imaginary, children learn to develop a
actual mothers are nurturing. secure relationship with another
person.
As infants mature, they recognize the • The not-me, when a person
tenderness and supportive behavior of disengages or selectively ignores the
their mothering one , and acquire a experiences that induce anxiety.
good-mother personification.

Later, the bad and good mother

personifications combine to form a
complex and conflicting image of the
real mother.
 Levels of Cognition
Sullivan observed three ways of perceiving things or levels of cognition-
prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic.
 Prototaxic level Parataxic level Syntaxic level

Prototaxic are the experiences Parataxic are the experiences that Syntaxic are referred to as
that are impossible to articulate are not comparable and nearly experiences that can be
or to communicate them to other impossible to accurately express accurately conveyed to others
people. to those around oneself.

This is mainly observed in There may exist parataxic At about 12 to 18 months of age
newborn infants distortions that are fallacious children become capable of
assumptions about cause and syntaxic language
effect.

but adults, too, are prone to the words begin to have the same
having preverbal experiences meaning for them that they do
that are fleeting and cannot be for others.
expressed to others in a
comprehensible manner.
 Stages of development
Sullivan gave seven stages of interpersonal development that begin at the infancy level and
goes up to adulthood. Personality changes can take place at any time.
 Stage Age Significant other Interpersonal Learning
process
Infancy 0-1 Mother Tenderness Good/bad

Childhood 1-5 Parents Imaginary Syntaxic

playmates language
Juvenile era 6-8 Playmates Living with peers Competition,
compromise,
cooperation
Pre-adolescent 8.5-12 Single friend Intimacy Affection and
respect
Early adolescents 13-17 Several friends Intimacy and lust Balance, security,
operations
Late adolescents 18-22 Lover Fusion of Discovery of self
intimacy and lust and world
Infancy (birth to 1 years)
• Infancy is the first developmental stage, which starts at one's birth and continues until
the maturation of capacity for language.
• During this period, the mothering one provides tenderness but the infant also develops
anxiety due to an empathetic link.
• Anxiety has a probability of increasing to terror, but it is curbed and regulated by the
built-in safeguards of apathy and drowsy detachment that let the baby sleep
peacefully.
• During this stage, communication is on a prototaxic and parataxic level and they
children use autistic language.
Childhood (aged 1 to 5)
• The second developmental stage is childhood.
• The childhood is the era of most influential acculturation processes.
• The start of childhood is marked by signs of language with proper grammar (syntaxic)
until they develop a need for peers of same status as them
• Children still identify with and connect to their mother. They also differentiate the
mother from others that may nurture.
Juvenile era (age 6-8)
• A child begins to seek friends that possess equal status and later, develops intimate
connections with some.
• During this stage, children ought to acquire the skills of competition, negotiation and
cooperation.
• Intimacy is an important and chief dynamism and when it is combined with the above
mentioned abilities, it helps the child in the next stage.
Pre-adolescents (age 8.5 to 12)
• Any errors that are made in earlier stages of development can be corrected during this
stage.
• But the errors that are made during this period are extremely difficult to overcome in
later life.
• Thus preadolescence is considered the most vital stage in development.
• Preadolescence covers the time from the need for a single best friend until puberty.
• It is characterized by the appearance of capacity to love; usually the attachment takes
place with the same sex individual.
• Children who fail to learn intimacy have face problems relating to potential sexual
partners as time passes.
Early adolescents (age 13 to 17)
• The lust dynamism starts concurrently with the onset of puberty and early adolescent
period.
• This stage is centered on the presence of an intimate relationship with one person of
the same gender that coexists with sexual attraction towards people of the opposite
gender.
• However, one may believe lust to be love where there is a lack of true intimacy and
develop primarily sexual relationships.
• This happens when they do not have any preexisting ability to be intimate.
Late adolescents (age 18 to 22/23)
• From a chronological perspective, late adolescence commences soon after one is aged
16 years.
• But in a psychological sense, when both lust and intimacy can be felt for the same
person, that is when one enters late adolescence.
• Young people adapt and learn how to live as an adult and take on responsibilities.
• Their ability to articulate well reaches it peak as there is a growth of syntaxic mode.
• There is also a stabilization of preferences pertaining to genital activity.
Adulthood (age 23 on)
• Adulthood is a period where an individual establishes a stable love life and
intimate relationship with a significant other that is deeply rooted in mutual
respect for one another.
• People also develop a stable pattern of how they perceive and view the world that
surrounds them.
Critics
• Firstly, it rates low in falsifiability, meaning it is difficult to prove wrong, which is a
crucial aspect of a good theory.
• Its ability to organize knowledge and guide action is average, indicating that while it
can provide some structure, it isn't particularly strong in practical application.
• Critics highlight the abstract nature of its concepts, which leads to a lack of empirical
testing and makes the theory hard to validate with real-world evidence.
• Additionally, the theory shows only average self-consistency and low frugality,
suggesting it could be more straightforward.
• Lastly, there are concerns that the role of interpersonal factors in the theory may be
overstated.
Conclusion
• Sullivan's theory of interpersonal relation has contributed to the field of psychology in
major ways.
• Firstly, he drifted from Freud in his approach and talked about how anxiety existed as
a result of various social situations. He gave importance to the social factors around
us.
• Also, Sullivan's interpersonal theory provides the theoretical basis for interpersonal
psychotherapy for depression and schizophrenia.
Interpersonal psychotherapy
• Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is a type of psychotherapy (talk therapy) that focuses on
improving your relationships with others to relieve mental health symptoms.
• “Interpersonal” means “being, relating to or involving relations between persons.”
• The basic principles of IPT include:
• Problematic interpersonal relationships are directly related to your current mood.
• Improving interpersonal relationships will improve your mood and mental health symptoms.
• Improvement in your mood and symptoms leads to better interpersonal functioning.
• IPT helps you become more aware of your emotions, thoughts and behaviors, and how they affect
your relationships and mood. After IPT, most people adopt healthier ways of relating to others.
• IPT can’t make stressful situations disappear, but you can respond to them more positively and feel
better overall.
Reference
GoodTherapy Editor Team. (2015b, July 7). Harry Stack Sullivan Biography. [Link]
psychologists/[Link]
Professional, C. C. M. (2024, October 4). Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT). Cleveland
Clinic. [Link]