HARRY STACK
SULLIVAN’S
INTERPERSONAL
THEORY
Prepared by:
Gerald M. Llanes, RPm, LPT
OVERVIEW OF
INTERPERSONAL THEORY
• Harry Stack Sullivan, the first American to
construct a comprehensive personality theory,
believed that people developed their
personality within a social context.
• Without other people, Sullivan contended,
humans would have no personality.
• “ A personality can never be isolated from the
complex of interpersonal relations in which the
person lives and has his being” (Sullivan,
1953)
• Sullivan insisted that knowledge of human
personality can be gained only through the
scientific study of interpersonal relations.
OVERVIEW OF
INTERPERSONAL THEORY
• His interpersonal theory emphasizes the
importance of various development stages
infancy, childhood, juvenile era,
preadolescence, early adolescence, late
adolescence, and adulthood.
• In other ways, Sullivan’s theory is dramatically
different from Freud. In fact, some writers
prefer to place Sullivan’s theory in a category
other than psychoanalytic approach.
OVERVIEW OF
INTERPERSONAL THEORY
• His rejection of many Freud’s concepts and his
emphasis on this interpersonal nature of
personality places Sullivan’s approach
somewhere between that of the
psychoanalysis and that of the social learning
theorists.
Harry Stack Sullivan
Harry Stack Sullivan’s Short
Biography
• Harry Stack Sullivan was born and trained in
America.
• He born in the small farming town in Norwich,
New York on February 21, 1892, the sole
surviving child of poor Irish catholic parents.
• When Sullivan was 8 1/2 years old he formed
a close relationship with a 13-year-old boy
from neighboring farm. This chum was
Clarence Bellinger, who lived a mile beyond
Harry.
Harry Stack Sullivan’s Short
Biography
• In other school district. Although the two boys
were not peers chronologically, they had much
common socially and intellectually.
• Both later became psychiatrists and neither
ever married. The relationship had a
transforming effect on Sullivan’s life. It
awakened in him the power of intimacy, that is
the ability to love another who was more or
less like himself.
Harry Stack Sullivan’s Short
Biography
• After a rather poor education. Sullivan flunked
out of college and obtained a medical degree
from a soon-defunct medical school.
• He worked as a psychoanalyst and from that
experiences eventually developed his own
theory of personality.
Harry Stack Sullivan’s Short
Biography
• On the personal side, Sullivan was not
comfortable with this sexually and had
ambivalent feelings toward marriage. As an
adult he brought into his home a 15-year- old
boy who was probably a former patient. This
young man James Inscoe remained with
Sullivan for 22 years, looking after his financial
affairs, typing manuscripts, and generally
running the household.
• Although Sullivan never officially adapted
James, he regard him as a son and even had
his legal name changed to James I. Sullivan.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• A. TENSION- It refers to the potentiality for
action that may or may not be experienced in
awareness. Thus, not all tensions are
consciously felt. Sullivan recognized two types
of tensions: needs and anxiety.
• NEEDS- these are tensions brought on by
biological imbalance between a person and
the physiochemical environment, both inside
and outside the organism. Although needs
originally have a biological component, many
of them from the interpersonal situations. For
Sullivan, the most basic interpersonal need is
tenderness.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• ANXIETY
• It is the chief disruptive force blocking the
development of healthy interpersonal relations.
• Severe anxiety makes people incapable of
learning, impairs memory, narrows
perceptions, and may event result in complete
amnesia because anxiety is painful people
have a natural tendency to avoid it.
• Inherently preferring the state of euphoria or
complete lack of tension.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• B. ENERGY TRANSFORMATIONS
• These are the tensions that are transformed
into actions, either overt or covert.
• This somewhat awkward term simply refers to
our behavior that are aimed at satisfying
needs and reducing anxiety the two great
tensions.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• C. PERSONIFICATIONS
• A mental image we have of other people and
of ourselves.
• Personification need not to correspond to
reality, for the importance of how they
influence our interactions with others lies in the
individually different way in which we
conceived of the other person.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 1. Bad- Mother, Good-Mother
• The bad-mother personification grows out of
infant’s experiences with a nipple that does not
satisfy their hunger needs.
• All infants experience the bad-mother
personification, even though their real mothers
may be loving and nurturing.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• Later, infants acquire a good-mother
personification as they become mature enough
to recognize the tender and cooperative
behavior of their mothering one.
• Still later, these two personifications combine to
form a complex and contrasting image of the real
mother.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 2. ME PERSONIFICATION
• The most noteworthy of the personifications
are those related to the self. According to
Sullivan, we all form images of ourselves, and
these images fall into three basic categories:
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 2.1 The good-me personification- consist of
those aspects of ourselves that we feel good
about that have been rewarded in the past,
and that are not associated with anxiety.
• 2.2 The bad-me personification - reflects
those parts of our experiences that we would
rather not think about, that have not been
rewarded, and that have associated with
anxiety.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 2.3 The not-me personification- represents
those aspect of ourselves which are so
threatening that we dissociate them from the
self-system and maintain them in our
unconscious. This process of dissociation is
similar to Freud’s concept of repression.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 3. EIDATIC PERSONIFICATION
• One Sullivan’s most interesting observations
was that people often create imaginary traits
that they project onto others.
• Include in these eidetic personifications are
the imaginary playmates that preschool- aged
children often have.
• These imaginary friends enable children to
have safe, secure relationship with another
person, even through that person is imaginary.
Imaginary friend
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• D. DYNAMISM refer to a typical pattern of
behavior.
• 1.MALEVOLENCE
• The disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred
is called malevolence, define by Sullivan as a
feeling of living among one's enemies.
• Those children who became malevolent have
much difficulty giving and receiving tenderness
or being intimate with other people.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 2.INTIMACY
• The conjunctive dynamism marked by a
close personal relationship between two
people of equal status is called intimacy.
• Intimacy facilitates interpersonal development
while decreasing both anxiety and loneliness.
intimacy must not be confused with sexual
interest. In fact, It develops prior to puberty.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 3. LUST
• In contrast to both malevolence and intimacy
lust is isolating dynamism. That is a selfcentered need that can be satisfied in the
absence of an intimate interpersonal
relationship.
• In order words although intimacy presupposes
tenderness or love, lust is based solely on
sexual gratification and requires no other
person for its satisfaction.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 4. SELF-SYSTEM
• The most inclusive of all dynamics is the selfsystem or that pattern of behaviors that protects us
against anxiety and maintain our interpersonal
security.
• Experience that are inconsistent with our selfsystem threaten our security and necessitate our
use of security operations, which consist of
behaviors designed to reduce interpersonal
tensions.
• One such security operation is dissociation which
includes all those experiences that we block from
awareness. Another is selective intention, which
involves blocking only certain experiences from
awareness.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• E. LEVEL OF COGNITION IN
INTERPERSONAL THEORY.
• Sullivan recognized three levels of cognition or
ways of perceiving things prototaxic,
parataxic, and syntaxic
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 1. PROTOTAXIC LEVEL
• Experiences that are impossible to put into
words or to communicate to others are called
prototatxic.
• Newborn infants experience images mostly on
the prototataxic level, but adults too frequently
have preverbal experiences that are
momentary and incapable of being
communicated.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 2. PARATAXIC LEVEL
• Experiences that are prelogical and nearly
impossible to accurately communicate to
others are called parataxic.
• Included in these are erroneous assumptions
about cause and effect which Sullivan termed
parataxic distortions.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 3. SYNTAXIC LEVEL
• Experiences that can be accurately
communicated to others are called syntaxic.
• Children become capable of syntaxic
language at about 12 to 18 months of age
when words begin to have the same meaning
for them that they do for others.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• F. STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN
INTERPERSONAL THEORY.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 1. INFANCY (0-2 years)
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 1. INFANCY (0-2 years)
• The period from birth until the emergence of
syntaxic language, usually at about age 18-24
months a time when child receives tenderness
from the mothering one while also learning
anxiety through an empathic linkage with the
mother.
• Anxiety may increase to the point of terror, but
such terror is controlled by the built-in protects of
apathy and somnolent detachment that allow the
baby to go to sleep.
• During infancy children use autistic language,
that is private language that makes little or no
sense to other people.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 2. CHILDHOOD (2-5years)
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 2. CHILDHOOD (2-5years)
• The stage that last from the beginning of
syntaxic language until the need for playmates
of equal status is called childhood.
• The child's primary interpersonal relationship
continues to be with the mother who is now
differentiated from other persons who nurture
the child.
• Besides their parents, preschool-aged children
often have one other significant relationship
an imaginary playmate.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 3. JUVENILE ERA (6-8 )
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 3. JUVENILE ERA (6-8 1/2 )
• The juvenile stage begins with the need for
peers of equal status and continues until the
child develops a need for an intimate
relationship with a chum. At this time children
should learn how to compete to compromise
and to cooperate.
• These three abilities. As well as an orientation
toward living, help a child develop intimacy,
the chief dynamism of the next developmental
stage
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 4. PREADOLECENCE (8½ -13 years)
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 4. PREADOLECENCE (8½ -13 years)
• Perhaps the most crucial stage in
preadolescence because mistakes made
earlier can be corrected during
preadolescence are nearly impossible to
overcome in later in life.
• Preadolescence spans the time from the need
for a single Best friend until puberty.
• Children who do not learn intimacy during
preadolescence have added difficulties
relating potential sexual partners during later
stages
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 5 EARY ADOLESCENCE. ( 13 TO 15
YEARS)
• Begins with puberty and ends with the need
for sexual love with one person.
• Develop during this stage is ordinarily marked
by a coexistence of intimacy with a single
friend of the same gender and sexual interest
in many person of the opposite gender.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 6. LATE ADOLESECENCE (15 TO 18
YEARS)
• It begins when a person is able to feel both
intimacy and lust in the same person.
• Late adolescence characterized by a stable
pattern of sexual activity and the growth of the
syntaxic mode, as young people learn how to
live in the adult world.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• 7. ADULTHOOD (18 onwards)
• Late adolescence flows into adulthood, a time
when a person develops a consistent pattern
of viewing the world.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• G. PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS
• Sullivan believe that all psychological disorder
have an interpersonal origin and can be
understood only with reference to the patient’s
social environment.
• Most of Sullivan’s early therapeutic work was
with schizophrenic patients, and many of this
subsequent lectures and writing dealt with
schizophrenia.
SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES /
CONCEPT
• Sullivan (1962) distinguished two broad
classes of schizophrenia. The first included all
those symptoms that originate from organic
causes and are therefore beyond the study of
interpersonal psychiatry.
• The second class included all schizophrenic
disorder grounded in situational factors. These
disorder were the only ones of concern to
Sullivan because they are only ones amenable
to change through interpersonal psychiatry.
SULLIVAN’S PSYCHOTERAPHY
• Because he believed that psychiatric disorder
grow out of interpersonal difficulties, Sullivan
based his therapeutic procedures on an effort
to improve a patient’s relationship with others.
• To facilitate this process, the therapist serves
as a participant observer, becoming part of an
interpersonal, face-to-face relationship with the
patients and providing the patient an
opportunity to establish syntaxic
communication with another human being.
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