Theories of Personality Reviewer

Chapter 8
Harry Stack Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory Working with patients with Schizophrenia made him realized
the importance of interpersonal relationships
OVERVIEW Allow sympathetic male attendants without experience treat
schizophrenic patients with human respect and care
People develop their personality within a social context “Clinical wizard”
“Scientific study of interpersonal relations” Zodiac group, Thompson, Ferenczi, Adolf Meyer. William A.
White
Healthy human development: establish both intimacy and lust Despite some Freudian influence on his therapeutic technique,
with the same person Sullivan’s theory of interpersonal psychiatry is neither
psychoanalytic nor neo-Freudian.
Anxiety can interfere with interpersonal relationships at any William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation in Washington,
age DC. (Journal: Psychiatry)
Washington School of Psychiatry
Preadolescence – most crucial stage; first possess intimacy James Inscoe Sullivan
without lust Not comfortable with his sexuality
Ambivalent feelings toward marriage and Catholic religion
BIOGRAPHY Died: January 14, 1949 Paris

Born: Feb 21, 1892 Norwich New York “Sullivan saw personality as an energy system. Can exist as
Poor Irish Catholic parents; farm life either tension or energy transformation”
2 siblings died before he was born
Taciturn father, protective mother Two kinds of experience—tensions and energy
Raised by grandmother, aunt and mother transformations
Mother was sent to mental hospital
Loner during childhood years TENSIONS
Clarence Bellinger Potentiality for actions
Valedictorian in highschool Can be conscious or unconscious
Suspended 1 year at Cornell University Anxiety, premonitions, drowsiness, hunger and sexual
Mysteriously disappeared in 2 years (treating his excitement (mostly unconscious; distortions of reality if
schizophrenia or spend time with a male model who overcome conscious)
sexual panic and intensified interest in psychology) Two types of tensions: Needs and Anxiety
Finished his medical studies in 1915 but did not receive his
degree until 1917 at Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery NEED
Mysteriously obtain a medical degree with lack of Conjunctive when satisfied
requirements Biological imbalance between a person and the
physiochemical environment
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Episodic
Originally from biological component but many stems from
interpersonal situations
Types of Needs:
1. General Needs – Facilitate overall well-being of a person
 Interpersonal (Tenderness, Intimacy, Love)
 Physiological (Food, oxygen, water, etc.)
2. Zonal Needs – May also satisfy general needs
 Oral
 Genital
 Manual
Dynamisms – Excess energy expends by the infant (while
satisfying general need) is transformed to consistent
characteristic modes of behavior/ patterns of behavior
ANXIETY
Disjunctive, diffuse, vague
Cause no consistent action for its relief
Course of action is unclear
Originate from the parent through empathy
Just as the infants does not have the capacity to reduce
anxiety, so do the parents. They would try to solve it
ineffectively.
Prevents needs to be satisfied/ action for relief
Disruptive force, blocking development of interpersonal
relationships
Prevents people from learning from mistakes and experiences,
Keep people pursuing childish wish for security
May result in complete insomnia, narrows perception
Euphoria – complete lack of tension
“Anxiety and loneliness”
Difference between anxiety and fear:
Anxiety: stems from interpersonal situation, more unconscious,
No positive value unless transformed into another tension
(anger & fear)
Fear: Conscious, origins can be pinpointed
ENERGY TRANSFORMATIONS
Tensions that are transformed into actions: covert or overt
Transformation of potential energy into actual energy
(behavior) for the purpose of satisfying needs or reducing
anxiety
DYNAMISMS
Energy transformations -- typical behavior patterns
“Traits/ behavioral patterns”
Two major classes: related to zones of the body (mouth,
anus, genitals) and related to tensions
Three component categories of Tensions: Disjunctive
(Malevolence); Isolation (lust); Conjunctive (intimacy & self-
sytem)
MALEVOLENCE
Disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred
Living among ones enemies
Originates 2-3 years of age
Maternal tenderness is rebuffed, ignored and met with
anxiety/pain
Antisocial/ Asocial behaviors
“Once upon a time everything was lovely, but that was before I
had to deal with people”
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INTIMACY
Tenderness involves close interpersonal relationships b/w 2
people who are more/less of equal status
Develops prior to puberty
Sees the other as a person of equal value
Decreasing anxiety and loneliness
Rewarding experience
LUST
Isolating tendency
Impersonal sexual interest in another person
Powerful dynamism during adolescence
Leads to reduction of self-esteem
Attempts lustful activity is rebuffed by others – Anxiety &
Decrease self-worth
Hinders intimate relationships especially during early
adolescence
SELF-SYSTEM
Maintains people’s interpersonal security by protecting them
from anxiety
Develop earlier than intimacy (8-12 months)
“Built-in warning device” – mixed blessing
Begin to form consistent image of self
Tend to deny or distort interpersonal experiences that conflict
with their self-regard
Security Operations – reduce feelings of insecurity and
anxiety that result from endangered self-esteem;
Powerful brake on personal and human progress
Two Important Security Operations:
Dissociation – impulses, desires and needs that a person
refuse to allow into awareness
Selective Inattention - control of focal awareness; refusal to
see those things that we do not wish to see
More accessible to awareness and more limited in scope;
Originate after we establish a self-system; triggered by our
attempts to block out experiences that are not consistent with
our existing self-system.
PERSONIFICATIONS
- People acquire certain images of themselves and others
- May be relatively accurate or grossly distorted (needs and
anxieties)
BAD-MOTHER, GOOD MOTHER
Similar to Klein’s ‘’Good breast and Bad breast’’
Includes everyone in the nursing situation. Not just the mother.
Bad mother: Infant’s vague representation of not being
properly fed; anxious malevolent mother
Good mother: calm, tender mother
ME PERSONIFICATIONS
During mid-infancy
Each is related to the evolving concept of me and the body
Bad-Me
Experiences of punishment and disapproval that infants
receive from their mothering one
Good-Me
Infants’ experiences with reward and approval
Not-Me
Result from Severe anxiety
Dissociate or selectively inattend experiences related to that
anxiety
Infant denies these experiences to the ‘’Me-image’’ so that
they become part of the not-me personification.
Encountered by adults and are expressed in dreams,
schizophrenic episodes, and other dissociated reactions.
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Adults experiencing severe anxiety – Uncanny emotions
(helpful in warning schizophrenic reactions; but incapacitates
interpersonal relationships)
EIDETIC PERSONIFICATIONS
Unrealistic traits or imaginary friends
Significant in child’s development s real playmates
Conflicts in interpersonal relations in adults
LEVELS OF COGNITION
Ways of perceiving, imagining or conceiving
PROTOTAXIC LEVEL
Undifferentiated experiences that cannot be able to
communicate to others; difficult to define or describe
Completely personal
Infants: Zones of the body – Don’t know the relation and
reason for sucking or crying when being hungry)
Adults: Dreams and waking life; momentary sensations,
images, feelings, moods, and impressions; strange sensation,
one that they cannot put into words.
PARATAXIC LEVEL
Prelogical and usually result when a person assumes a cause-
and-effect relationship between two events that occur
coincidentally
Can be communicated to others only in a distorted fashion
Parataxic Distortion – Conclusion or illogical belief that a
cause-and-effect relationships exists between two events in
close temporal proximity
SYNTAXIC LEVEL
Consensually validated experiences – whose meaning two or
more persons agree (ex: words, symbols used by one person
to communicate with another)
Begins with a shared meaning of sounds and gestures
between a parent and the child
More prevalent as the child develops formal language
But never completely supplants prototaxic and parataxic levels
Adult experience takes place on all three levels
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
INFANCY
Birth – 18 to 24 months (develop syntaxic speech)
Infant becomes human through tenderness received from the
mothering one.
Empathic linkage between the mother and infant – Anxiety of
baby
Infant’s first anxiety is always associated with the nursing
situation and the oral zone
When infants are anxious, they try whatever means available
to reduce anxiety
Infant discriminates between the good-nipple (relative
euphoria in the feeding process) and the bad nipple (enduring
anxiety) or Dual personification of the mother
An infant expresses both anxiety and hunger through crying
(mothering one may mistake anxiety for hunger)
Apathy and Somnolent Detachment (built-in protection)
Allow the infant to fall asleep despite hunger
Saves Infant from death
Occurs when infants tension became terror
Around midinfancy, infants begin to learn how to communicate
through language. Parataxic level.
Autistic Language
Private language that makes little or no sense to other people.
Early communication: Facial expressions and Phonemes
(learned through imitation)
Syntaxic language and End of Infancy
Gestures and speech sounds have same meaning for infants
as they do for the other people
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Learn that society has placed certain restraints on their
CHILDHOOD freedom – Evolve self-dynamisms (help handle anxiety and
18 to 24 months – 5 or 6 years stabilize personality)
Advent of syntaxic language Self-system introduces so much stability that it makes future
Dual personifications of mother is fused into one (real mother) changes exceedingly difficult.
(Good mother and bad mother are retained on a parataxic
level) JUVENILE
Seeing mother and father as having a distinct role 5 or 6 – 8 ½
Differentiates various persons who previously formed the Compete, Compromise, Cooperate
concept of a mothering one Cooperation:
Good and Bad behavior: Critical step in becoming socialized
Fusing me-personifications into a single self-dynamisms Most important task confronting children during this stage of
Imitation of their parents development.
Symbolized on a syntaxic level Children associate with other children who are of equal
Originate from children’s behavior rather than from decreases standing
or increases in their anxiety One-to-one relationships are rare, but if they exist, they are
Imply on Social or Moral Value more likely to be based on convenience than on genuine
Emotions become reciprocal: intimacy
Child is able to give tenderness as well as receive it Beginning to make discriminations among themselves and to
Relationship between mother and child becomes more distinguish among adults
personal and less one-sided Orientation toward Living:
Imaginary Friend/Eidetic Friend: Readies a person for the deeper interpersonal relationships to
Helps children to have a safe, secure relationships that follow
produces little anxiety Easier to consistently handle anxiety, satisfy zonal and
Become ready for intimacy with real friends during the tenderness needs, and set goals based on memory and
preadolescence stage. foresight.
To be more independent of parents and to make friends in
later years PREADOLESCENCE
Period of Rapid Acculturation: 8 ½ - Adolescence
Dramatizations: attempts to act like or sound like significant Time for intimacy with one particular person, usually a person
authority figures, especially mother and father of the same gender
Preoccupations: strategies for avoiding anxiety and fear- (Preceding stages are egocentric: make friendships based on
provoking situations by remaining occupied with an activity self-interest)
that has earlier proved useful or rewarding Genuine interest in the other person
Malevolent Attitude: ‘’Quiet Miracle of Preadolescence’’
Intense feeling of living in a hostile or enemy country Genesis of the capacity to love.
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Intimacy and Love: Essence of Friendships
Intimacy involves a relationship in which the two partners
consensually validate one another’s personal worth
Love exists “when the satisfaction or the security of another
person becomes as significant to one as is one’s own
satisfaction or security”
Intimate relationship: Involves another person of the same
gender and of approximately the same age or social status
To be liked by one’s peers is more important to the
preadolescent than to be liked by teachers or parents.
‘’Most Untroubled and Carefree Time of Life’’
Can experience unselfish love that has not yet been
complicated by lust.
Cooperation – Capacity to work with another for the well-being
of that other
Mistakes Made During Infancy, Childhood and Juvenile:
Can overcome during preadolescence (Intimacy)
Mistakes Made During Preadolescence:
Difficult to surmount during later stages
EARLY ADOLESCENCE
Puberty – Need for Sexual Love with One Person
Intimacy and Lust toward different persons
Eruption of Genital Interest
Advent of Lustful Relationships
Middle-school years
‘’Intimacy, Lust, Security’’
Because the lust dynamism is biological, it bursts forth at
puberty regardless of the individual’s interpersonal readiness
for it
Search for intimacy can increase anxiety and threaten security
Turning point in personality development
Although sexual adjustment is important to personality
development, real issue lies in getting along with other people
LATE ADOLESCENCE
Fusion of lust and Intimacy towards the same person –
Adulthood
Period of Self-discovery
Completely determined by interpersonal relations (unlike early
adolescence ushered by biological changes)
Growing syntaxic mode
Begin exchanging ideas with others and having their opinions
and beliefs either validated or repudiated.
Learn from others how to live in the adult world (but a
successful journey through the earlier stages facilitates this
adjustment)
If Previous Stages were unsuccessful:
No intimate interpersonal relations
Inconsistent patterns of sexual activity
Great need to maintain security operations
Rely heavily on Parataxic Mode to avoid anxiety
Dissociation and Selective Inattention (to strive self-esteem)
and neurotic symptoms
Pressured into ‘’Falling in Love’’
Only the mature person has the capacity to love; Others
merely go through the motions of being “in love” in order to
maintain security
ADULTHOOD
Successful completion of Late Adolescence
People can establish a love relationship with at least one
significant other person.
Highly developed Intimacy with another – Principal source of
satisfaction in life
Beyond the scope of Interpersonal Psychiatry
‘’Extrapolation from preceding stages’’
Mature adults are perceptive of other people’s anxiety, needs,
and security
Operate predominantly on the syntaxic level
Find life interesting and exciting
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“Dissociation” and “Self-system”

PSYCHOTHERAPY
Improve patient’s relationship with others
Therapist serves as a Participant Observer
Provides the patient an opportunity to establish syntaxic
communication
Sullivan’s therapeutic technique were credited by Eric Fromm
as an evidence that psychosis is not merely a physical
disorder and personal relationships of human beings is the
essence of psychological growth
Aim: Uncovering patient’s difficulties in relating to others
Sullivanian therapists avoid getting personally involved; do not
place themselves on the same level with the patients
They try to convince the patient of their expert abilities
Friendship is not a condition of psychotherapy; remain expert

Concerned with understanding patients and helping them

improve foresight, discover difficulties in interpersonal
relations, and restore their ability to participate in consensually
validated experiences.

“Precisely what is the patient saying to me? “

PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS “How can I best put into words what I wish to say to the
All psychological disorders have an interpersonal origin and patient?”
can be understood only with reference to the patient’s social “What is the general pattern of communication between us?”
environment
Deficiencies found in psychiatric patients are found in every
person, but to a lesser degree.

Schizophrenic patients
2 classes of Schizophrenia:
 Originate from organic cause; (beyond the study of
Interpersonal Psychiatry)
 Situational Factors (amenable to change through
Interpersonal Psychiatry)