SULLIVAN’S

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS
GROUP 2
HARRY STACK SULLIVAN
was born on Feb. 21, 1892, in the farming
community of Norwich New York
He was raised in the relative isolation on a rural farm
near Smyrna, New York, with no siblings and few
playmates.
He is an American psychiatry who developed a theory
of psychiatry based on interpersonal relationships.
In 1909. He spent his two years at Cornell University
and received his M.D from the Chicago College at
Medicine and Surgery on 1917.
In 1936, he helped to established the Washingtong School of
Psychiatry.
Sullivan began practicing medicine after graduating, and in
1921, he worked under William Alanson White as a
neuropsychiatrist at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington
DC.
The following year, he was employed at Sheppard Pratt
Hospital in Maryland, where he become director of clinical
research in 1925.
 INTERPERSONAL THEORY OF
PERSINALITY
-He proposed the interpersonal theory of personality. The theory
further states that the purpose of all behavior is to get needs met
through interpersonal interactions and to decrease or avoid anxiety.
Interpersonal relationships and social experiences in shaping
personality
He also explained the importance of current life events to
psychopathology.
 INTERPERSONAL THEORY OF
PERSINALITY

-Although Sullivan had a lonely and isolated childhood,

he evolved a theory of personality that relations. He
insisted that personality is shaped almost entirely by the
relationships we have with other people. Sullivan’s
principal contribution to personality theory was his
conception of developmental stagrs.
Sullivan discriminated betwen three forms of self based on experiences and behaviors that induce
anxiety in the mother:

01
GOOD-ME 02 BAD-ME 03 NOT-ME

Developed with
Developed with
Developed with experiences and
eperiences and behaviors that evoke
experiences and
behaiors that meet intense anxiety in the
with mother’s approval
behavior that induces
mother which is so
bringing about more anxiety in
dreadful that the
tenderness and little mother; associated child obliterates from
anxiety; associated with increasing his awareness;
with a of security and anxiety associated with
relaxation intense anxiety
The total configuration of personality traits is known as the self-system, which develops in
various stages. Sullivan called it as ‘developmental epochs’. This is the outgrowth of
interpersonal experiences and not the unfolding of intraosychic forces.

INFANT ( age 0 - 1 year old )

CHILDHOOD ( age 1 - 4 years old )

JUVENILE ( age 4 - 8 years old )

 PREADOLESCENT ( age 8 - 13 years old )

EARLY ADOLESCENCE ( 13 - 15 YEARS OLD )

LATE ADOLESCENCE 9 after 16 years )

 PREADOLESCENT ( age 8 - 13 years old )

EARLY ADOLESCENCE ( 13 - 15 YEARS OLD )

LATE ADOLESCENCE 9 after 16 years )

ADULT ( POST-ADOLESCENE)