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Harry Stack Sullivan
Herbert “Harry” Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) was an American Neo-Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who held that the personality lives in, and has his or her being in, a complex of interpersona...view moreHerbert “Harry” Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) was an American Neo-Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who held that the personality lives in, and has his or her being in, a complex of interpersonal relations. Having studied therapists Sigmund Freud, Adolf Meyer, and William Alanson White, he devoted years of clinical and research work to helping people with psychotic illness.
Born on February 21, 1892, Sullivan and grew up in the then anti-Roman Catholic town of Norwich, New York, resulting in a social isolation which may have inspired his later interest in psychiatry. He attended the Smyrna Union School, then spent two years at Cornell University from 1909, receiving his medical degree in Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery in 1917.
Besides making the first mention of the significant other in psychological literature, Sullivan developed the Self System, a configuration of the personality traits developed in childhood and reinforced by positive affirmation and the security operations developed in childhood to avoid anxiety and threats to self-esteem. Sullivan further defined the Self System as a steering mechanism toward a series of I-You interlocking behaviors; that is, what an individual does is meant to elicit a particular reaction.
Sullivan’s work on interpersonal relationships became the foundation of interpersonal psychoanalysis, a school of psychoanalytic theory and treatment that stresses the detailed exploration of the nuances of patients’ patterns of interacting with others.
He was one of the founders of the William Alanson White Institute, considered by many to be the world’s leading independent psychoanalytic institute, and of the journal Psychiatry in 1937. He headed the Washington (DC) School of Psychiatry from 1936-1947. He influenced generations of mental health professionals, especially through his lectures at Chestnut Lodge in Washington, D.C.
He died in Paris, France on January 14, 1949, aged 56.view less
Books by Harry Stack Sullivan
Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry: The First William Alanson White Memorial Lecture