The Interpersonal and the Intrapsychic 211frustrating when needs and actions are not complementary
and no resolution can be found, leading to an increase in anx-
iety and likely disintegration of the situation.
For Sullivan, the interpersonal situation underlies genesis,
development, mutability, and maintenance of personality.
The continuous patterning and repatterning of interpersonal
experience in relation to the vicissitudes of satisfactions and
security in interpersonal situations gives rise to lasting
conceptions of self and other (Sullivan’s “personifications”)
as well as to enduring patterns of interpersonal relating. To
us, the interpersonal situation is at the core of an inter-
personal theory of personality. The power of interpersonal
experiences to create, refine, and change personality as Sulli-
van conceived is the foundation of an interpersonal theory of
personality that has been elaborated in the last half century by
a wide range of theoretical, empirical, and clinical efforts.
A comprehensive theory of personality includes con-
temporaneous analysis emphasizing present description and
developmental analysis emphasizing historical origins as well
as the continuing significance of past experience on cur-
rent functioning (Millon, 1996). Consistent with these ap-
proaches, the fundamental aspects of an interpersonal theory
of personality should include (a) a delineation of what is
meant byinterpersonal,(b) the systematic description of in-
terpersonal behavior, (c) the systematic description of recip-
rocal interpersonal patterns, (d) articulation of processes and
structures that account for enduring patterns of relating, and
(e) motivational and developmental principles. In our opin-
ion, interpersonal theorists have reached greater consensus on
contemporaneous description than on developmental con-
cepts. This consensus may be due in part to ambiguity in the
meaning of the terminterpersonal.
THE INTERPERSONAL AND THE INTRAPSYCHIC
Where are interpersonal situations to be found? Millon’s
(1996) distinction between contemporaneous and develop-
mental analysis alludes to the dichotomy of the interpersonal
and the intrapsychic. Specifically, current description evokes
a view of the reciprocal behavior patterns of two persons en-
gaged in resolving, negotiating, or disintegrating their pre-
sent interpersonal situation. In this sense, we might focus on
what can be observed to transpire between them. In contrast,
developmental analysis implies that there is something rela-
tively stable that a person brings to each new interpersonal
situation. Such enduring influences might be considered to
reside within the person—that is, they are intrapsychic.The
dichotomous conception of the interpersonal and the in-
trapsychic as two sets of phenomena—one residing between
people and one residing within a person—may have at times
led interpersonal theorists to focus more attention on con-
temporaneous analysis with perhaps greater hesitancy to
elaborate on developmental influences. In our opinion, how-
ever, we must include developmental concepts if we are to be
comprehensive, and this in turn requires examination of in-
trapsychic structures and processes. As it turns out, Sullivan
would not be opposed to such efforts.
Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) point out that Sullivan’s
interpersonal theory of psychiatry was largely a response to
Freud’s strong emphasis on drive-based intrapsychic aspects
of personality. Because of Sullivan’s opposition to drives as
the source of personality structuralization, there is a risk of
simplifying interpretation of interpersonal theory as focusing
solely on what occurs outside the person, in the world of ob-
servable interaction. Mitchell (1988) points out that Sullivan
was quite amenable to incorporating the intrapsychic into
interpersonal theory because he viewed the most important
contents of the mind to be the consequence of lived inter-
personal experience. For example, Sullivan (1964) states,
“... everything that can be found in the human mind has been
put there by interpersonal relations, excepting only the capa-
bilities to receive and elaboratethe relevant experiences”
(p. 302; see also Stern, 1985, 1988).
Mitchell (1988) specifies several concepts associated with
the dichotomization of interpersonal and intrapsychic, in-
cluding perception versus fantasy and actuality versus
psychic reality. Sullivan clearly viewed fantasy as fundamen-
tal to interpersonal situations. He defined psychiatry as
the “study of the phenomena that occur in configurations
made up of two or more people, all but one of whom may be
more or less completely illusory” (Sullivan, 1964, p. 33).
These illusory aspects of the interpersonal situation involve
mental structures—that is, personifications of self and others.
Sullivan (1953b) was forceful in asserting that personifica-
tions are elaborated organizations of past interpersonal expe-
rience, stating “... I would like to make it forever clear that
the relation of the personifications to that which is personified
is always complex and sometimes multiple; and that personi-
fications are not adequate descriptions of that which is per-
sonified” (p. 167). Sullivan also saw subjective meaning (i.e.,
psychic reality) as highly important. For example, Mitchell
(1988) points out that Sullivan’s conception of parataxic inte-
gration involves subjective experience of the interpersonal
situation influenced by intrapsychic structure and process.
Sullivan (1953a) describes parataxic integrations as occur-
ring “when, beside the interpersonal situation as defined
within the awareness of the speaker, there is a concomitant
interpersonal situation quite different as to its principle inte-
grating tendencies, of which the speaker is more or less