Harry Stack Sullivan

1892 - 1949

• “Man – however undistinguished biologically – as long as he is entitled to the term, human personality, will be very much more like every other instance of human personality, than he is like anything else in the world.” ( Sullivan 1953)

Sullivan’s Biographical Data

• Raised as an Irish Catholic in a rural, Protestant town.

• Only child• Never accepted by other children• Became fascinated with horses

• Two horse head symbol

• Evil vs. Good• Male vs. Female• Homosexual intimacy

• Mother dominant• Third child, but others died in infancy• Mother

• Semi-invalid• Depressed• Periods of hospitalization• Married below social class

− Communicated this to son

• Disappeared when he was 2 ½ − Could not care for him

• Her mother became caretaker− Distant

• Mother possibly attempted suicide

• Father• Distant and taciturn• 30 before closer relationship• Believed mother had prevented this

• 8 ½ first close relationship• Older boy 13• Suspected homosexual relationship

• Others argue that it was not• Town’s people believed it• Increased isolation, but unity of the two• Harry showed trust and tenderness• Other boy, Clarence manipulative bully• Both became psychiatrists

• College (Cornell University) at 16• Suspended

− Version 1 – failed all subjects− Version 2 – attempted to obtain drugs using

stolen drugstore stationary

• Dropped from sight for 2 years

• Possibly a schizophrenic episode• Hospitalized at Bellevue

• Admitted to medical school without college 1911• 19 years old and poor• Little psychiatric training there

− His worst grades

• Graduated in 4 years− Unpaid tuition− 2 years later redeemed his diploma

• Worked for federal government with veterans 1921

• St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in D.C.

• 1923 Baltimore – Shepherd Pratt Hospital• Empathic relationship with schizophrenics• 6 male aides instructed in patient

relationships• Creating healthy relationships

− Believed schizophrenia rooted in unhealthy relationships

• Encouraged staff to share preadolescent homosexual experimentation− Believed it was normal maturation

• 80% of patients substantially improved− Selectively chosen patients− Generalization difficult

• Disregard for rules of psychiatry

• 1927 “adopted” 15 year old boy• Lived with him until death in 1949• Typified as genuinely intimate on both

parts

• 1930 moved to New York• Park Avenue practice

• 1949 World Federation of Mental Health in Paris – brain hemorrhage and died

Sullivan’s Theory

• Development• Prototaxic Mode

• Stream of sensory experience• No meaning or order• No cause and effect• No sense of time• “mouth mother” – appears when hungry

− Crying not associated as cause

• Own existence is everything

• Parataxic Mode• Mounting hunger results in feeding

− Anticipation of satisfaction

• Predict one event from another leads to understanding of time

• Egocentrism reduced• Differentiate body from world• Superstitions

− Gamblers win with person sitting next to them

• Syntaxic Mote• Adult logic• Physical and spatial causality

• Synthesis of past, present, and future• Language allows children to store

information− Allows Syntaxic mode

• Sources of psychological difficulties• Disturbed interpersonal relationship early

in life• The self-identity becomes distorted• Perceptions are involved

− It is not only how the other acts it’s how we perceive their actions

− Particularly true in early childhood

− Primary disturbance with mother– Child responds to anxiety caused in this

relationship in such a way as to reduce it– Maladaptive behavior paterns become

established and are maintained− Examining these relationships and adaptations

in therapeutic relationship will lead to better health

• Founded William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation in 1933

• Helped found the Washington School of Psychiatry in 1936

• Helped found the World Federation for Mental Health after WW II

• In 1938 helped found the journal Psychiatry and served as editor

• Wrote• “The Interpersonal Theory of

Psychiatry”• “The Fusion of Psychiatry and Social

Science”