Chapter 8: Interpersonal Theory by Harry Stack Sullivan PDF

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Interpersonal Theory by Harry Stack Sullivan Overview • People develop their personality within a social context • Without other people, humans would have no personality • Development rests on the individual’s ability to establish intimacy with another person • Anxiety can interfere with satisfying interpersonal relations • Healthy development entails experiencing intimacy and lsut toward another same person Harry Stack Sullivan • Born Feb. 21, 1892 • Oldest existing son of poor • Irish Catholic parents • Lovely childhood existence • Poor relationship with father • Close friendship with Clarence Belingger • Academically gifted • Poor academic performance in freshman year at Cornell • Suffered a schizophrenic breakdown • Enrolled for Medicine, received degree 2 years after graduation • Work with William Alanson White • Private practice in New York • Zodiac Group • His therapy was neither psychoanalytic nor neo-Freudian • Hemorrhage on Jan. 14,1949 • Rumors of homosexuality Personality Personality is an energy system • Tension-potentiality for action • Energy Transformations- actions themselves Tension • Anxiety, premonitions, drowsiness, hunger, sexual excitement • Not always on a conscious level • Partial distortions of reality • It has two types: o Needs ▪ Tension brought about by a biological imbalance between the person and environment. ▪ Episodic ▪ Biological component and interpersonal relations ➢ Zonal Needs- arises from a specific body part ➢ General Needs- overall well-being of a person ➢ Tenderness is a basic interpersonal need o Anxiety ▪ Disjunctive, diffuse and vague, call forth no consistent action for relief ▪ Transferred through empathy ▪ Chief disruptive force blocking the development of healthy interpersonal relations ➢ Prevents people from learning from mistakes ➢ Persisting pursuance of childish wish for security ➢ Ensures people will not learn from experience ➢ Its presences is worse than its absence ▪ Stems from complex interpersonal relations ▪ Vaguely represented in awareness ▪ No positive value ▪ Blocks satisfaction of needs

Energy Transformations ➢ Tensions transformed into either covert or overt actions ➢ Behaviors that satisfy our needs and reduce anxiety ➢ May be observable or hidden from other people (emotions, thoughts) ➢ Evolves into dynamisms Dynamisms • Traits or habit patterns • Major Classes: o Related to specific zones of the body ▪ Mouth, anus, genitals o Those related to tensions ▪ Disjunctive (Malevolence) ▪ Isolating (Lust) ▪ Conjunctive (Intimacy and Self-System) Malevolence • Disjunctive dynamism between evil and hatred • Feeling of living among one’s enemies • 2-3 years, when child is rebuffed, ignored, or punished • Adoption of malevolent attitude for protection • Timidity, mischievousness, cruelty, anti-social behavior Lust • Assumes an isolating tendency • Auto-erotic behavior • Hinders an intimate relationship • Increases anxiety and decreases self-worth Intimacy • Close interpersonal relationship between 2 people of equal status • Equal partnership • Integrating dynamism that draws out loving reactions from people • Decreases loneliness and anxiety • Rewarding experiences most healthy people desire Self-system • Most complex and inclusive of all dynamisms • Consistent pattern of behavior that maintains people’s interpersonal security by protecting them from anxiety • Principal stumbling block to favorable changes in personality • Security operations Security Operations • Reduces feelings of anxiety or insecurity • Two kinds of Security Operations o Dissociation- includes impulses, desires, and needs that a person refuses to allow into awareness (dreams) o Selective Inattention- refusal to see things that one does not wish to see (conscious) Personification • People’s images of themselves or others • Begins in infancy and continues throughout development o Bad mother- good mother ▪ Similar to Klein’s Good Breast and Bad Breast o Me ▪ Bad Me, Good Me, Not Me ▪ Building blocks of self-personification o Eidetic Personification ▪ Imaginary friends ▪ Projection of traits to other people

Level of Cognition Refers to ways of perceiving, imagining and conceiving • Prototaxic- undifferentiated experiences which are highly personal • Parataxic- communicated to others in a distorted fashion • Syntaxic- consensually validated and symbolically communicated Stages of Development Stage Age Significant Other Infancy 0-2 Mother Childhoo 2-6 Parents d Juvenile 6-8.5 Playmates Era Preadolesce nce Early Adolesce nce Late Adolesce nce

Interpersona l Process Tenderness Imaginary Playmates Living with Peers

8.5-13

Single Chum

Intimacy

13-15

Several Chums

intimacy and Lust

15above

Lover

Fusion of intimacy and lust

Learnings Good/Bad Syntaxic language Competition, compromise, cooperation Affection & Respect Balance, security, operations Discovery of self & world

Psychological Disorders • All psychological disorders have an interpersonal origin and must be understood with reference to social environment • Deficiencies found in psychiatric patients are found in every person to a lesser degree • Psychological difficulties are not unique, but come from same interpersonal difficulties we all face • Two brand classes of schizophrenia o Organic o Situational Psychotherapy • Therapist is a participant observer who establishes an interpersonal relationship with the patient and provides opportunity for 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.

Dynamism - typical pattern of behavior. It can relate to either specific zones of the body or to tensions Intimacy - Integrating dynamism that draws out loving reactions from people Lust is an isolating dynamism. It is in contrast to both malevolence and intimacy. It is a self-centered need that can be satisfied in the absence of an intimate interpersonal relationship Self-system primary job is to protect the self from anxiety, it tends to stifle personality chance. Security Operations has two kinds Dissociation = includes impulses, desires, and needs that a person refuses to allow into awareness. (dreams) Selective Inattention = refusal to see things that one does not wish to see. (conscious) Eidetic Personifications Projection of traits to other people • • •

Prototaxic level - experiences that are impossible to put into words or communicate to others Parataxic Level - Experiences that are prelogical and nearly impossible to accurately communicate to others Syntaxic - Experiences that can be accurately communicated to others. Children can become capable of syntaxic language at about 12-18 months.

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