Theories_of_Personality 7th Ed Feist

Feist−Feist: Theories of

Personality, Seventh

Edition

II. Psychodynamic

Theories

8. Sullivan: Interpersonal
   Theory

© The McGraw−Hill^239

Companies, 2009

Psychological Disorders

Sullivan believed that all psychological disorders have an interpersonal origin and
can be understood only with reference to the patient’s social environment. He also
held that the deficiencies found in psychiatric patients are found in every person, but
to a lesser degree. There is nothing unique about psychological difficulties; they are
derived from the same kind of interpersonal troubles faced by all people. Sullivan
(1953a) insisted that “everyone is much more simply human than unique, and that
no matter what ails the patient, he is mostlya person like the psychiatrist” (p. 96).
Most of Sullivan’s early therapeutic work was with schizophrenic patients, and
many of his subsequent lectures and writings dealt with schizophrenia. Sullivan
(1962) distinguished two broad classes of schizophrenia. The first included all those
symptoms that originate from organic causes and are therefore beyond the study of
interpersonal psychiatry. The second class included all schizophrenic disorders

Chapter 8 Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory 233

TABLE 8.2

Summary of Sullivan’s Stages of Development

Infancy

Childhood

Juvenile era

Preadolescence

Early

adolescence

Late

adolescence

0 to 2

2 to 6

6 to 8^1 / 2

81 / 2 to 13

13 to 15

15 —

Mothering one

Parents

Playmates of

equal status

Single chum

Several chums

Lover

Tenderness

Protect security

through

imaginary

playmates

Orientation

toward living

in the world

of peers

Intimacy

Intimacy and

lust toward

different

persons

Fusion of

intimacy and

lust

Good mother/

bad mother;

good me/bad

me

Syntaxic

language

Competition,

compromise,

cooperation

Affection and

respect from

peers

Balance of

lust,

intimacy and

security

operations

Discovery of

self and the

world

outside of

self

Significant Interpersonal Important

Stage Age Others Process Learnings