Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory

Sullivan's concept of humanity is best summarized in this statement.

**A) "Everyone is much more simply human than unique." B) "The life of humans is short, brutish, and nasty." C) "The average person lives a life of quiet desolation." D) "The purpose of life is pleasure."

Sullivan saw anxiety as

**A) a disruptive force in interpersonal relations. B) an undifferentiated mode of cognition. C) an isolating dynamism. D) a positive force in the mother-child relationship.

Sullivan's early life was marked by

**A) loneliness and isolation. B) a strong ambition to become famous. C) a close relationship with his three sisters. D) childhood diseases that left him unable to walk for several years.

Sullivan's statement, "Once upon a time everything was lovely, but that was before I had to deal with people," is an expression of

**A) malevolence. B) intimacy. C) euphoria. D) dissociation. E) selective attention.

Sullivan identified two principal kinds of tensions:

**A) needs and anxiety. B) sexual and interpersonal. C) tenderness and toughness. D) prototaxic and parataxic.

A pet dog could meet one's needs for

**A) tenderness. B) intimacy. C) malevolence. D) self-fulfillment. E) all of the above.

Sullivan called needs that originate from a particular area of the body

**A) zonal needs. B) general needs. C) body dynamisms. D) physical personifications.

Sullivan defined euphoria as

A) a disruptive force in interpersonal relations. B) an undifferentiated mode of cognition. C) an isolating dynamism. D) a magical link between mother and child. **E) none of the above.

Same-sex chumships and the development of intimacy characterize which stage of development?

A) adulthood B) juvenile era **C) preadolescence D) early adolescence E) late adolescence

Which of the following is an isolating dynamism?

A) anxiety **B) lust C) intimacy D) the self-system E) tenderness

The two key concepts in Sullivan's theory are interpersonal relations and

A) defense. B) aggression. **C) anxiety. D) conscious drives. E) integration.

According to Sullivan, a well-fed infant in deep sleep is probably experiencing

A) empathy. **B) euphoria. C) lust. D) a dream. E) nothing.

Unlike anxiety, needs are

A) isolating dynamisms. **B) integrative or productive. C) disintegrative or disjunctive. D) the chief disruptive forces in interpersonal relations.

To Sullivan, the most basic interpersonal need is

A) love. **B) tenderness. C) self-actualization. D) acceptance.

The most complex and inclusive of all dynamisms is

A) lust. **B) the self-system. C) love. D) tenderness. E) the malevolent transformation.

The main feature of Sullivan's personality theory is its emphasis on

A) middle age. B) sexual development. C) self fulfillment. **D) interpersonal relations. E) a collective unconscious.

Intimacy is restricted to tender feelings one has for

A) parents or parental figures. B) authority figures outside the family. C) the therapist during participant observation. **D) others of similar or equal status. E) a person of the other sex.

Experiences that are consensually validated and that can be symbolically communicated to others are

A) prototaxic. B) parataxic. **C) syntaxic. D) disjunctive. E) isolating.

The self-system

A) regulates and evaluates behavior. **B) is an anti-anxiety system. C) evolves from the malevolent transformation. D) develops during late adolescence. E) both a and d are correct.

Which personifications take the form of imaginary traits attributed to significant others or of imaginary people invented to protect self-esteem?

A) syntaxic **B) eidetic C) uncanny D) malevolent

Energy transformations organized into characteristic behavior patterns are

A) tensions of need. **B) dynamisms. C) tensions of anxiety. D) zonal needs. E) general needs.

In Sullivan's theory, malevolence is

A) the feeling of living among friends **B) the dynamism of evil and hatred. C) a conjunctive dynamism. D) all of the above. E) a and b only.

Lust marks the beginning of

A) the juvenile era. B) preadolescence. **C) early adolescence. D) late adolescence. E) adulthood.

_____________ is the final developmental stage in Sullivan's theory.

Adulthood

Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory: Concept of Humanity

Because Sullivan saw human personality as being largely formed from interpersonal relations, his theory rates very high on social influences and very low on biological ones. In addition, it rates high on unconscious determinants, average on free choice, optimism, and causality, and low on uniqueness.

Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory: Critique

Despite Sullivan's insights into the importance of interpersonal relations, his theory of personality and his approach to psychotherapy have lost popularity in recent years. In summary, his theory rates very low in falsifiability, low in its ability to generate research, and average in its capacity to organize knowledge and to guide action. In addition, it is only average in self-consistency and low in parsimony.

_________________________ occurs when we block out experiences from our self-system.

Dissociation

____________________________________ is a somewhat awkward term that Sullivan used to describe actions or behaviors.

Energy transformations

T/F According to Sullivan the most basic human need is lust.

False

T/F As a child Sullivan enjoyed a warm relationship with both his mother and his father.

False

T/F As an elementary school student, Sullivan was twice voted most popular boy his class.

False

T/F For most people, the first experience with anxiety occurs when they begin school.

False

T/F Having an imaginary playmate is usually a sign of emotional instability in a child.

False

T/F In Sullivan's theory, the childhood stage begins at about 2 years of age and ends at about age 10.

False

T/F Sullivan developed his theory of personality while studying with Charcot in Paris during the 1920s.

False

T/F Sullivan's principal contribution to personality theory was his concept of self-actualization.

False

T/F Sullivanian theory rates high on falsifiability.

False

Harry Stack Sullivan

Harry Stack Sullivan, the first American to develop a comprehensive personality theory, was born in a small farming community in upstate New York in 1892. A socially immature and isolated child, Sullivan nevertheless formed one close interpersonal relationship with a boy five years older than himself. In his interpersonal theory, Sullivan believed that such a relationship has the power to transform an immature preadolescent into a psychologically healthy individual. Six years after becoming a physician, and with no training in psychiatry, Sullivan gained a position at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C., as a psychiatrist. There, his ability to work with schizophrenic patients won him a reputation as a therapeutic wizard. However, despite achieving much respect from an influential group of associates, Sullivan had few close interpersonal relations with any of his peers. He died alone in Paris in 1949, at age 56.

Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory: Related Research

In recent years, a number of researchers have studied the impact of two-person relationships, involving both therapy and non-therapy encounters. A. Therapist-Patient Relationships Hans Strupp, William Henry, and associates at Vanderbilt developed the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior, an instrument for studying the dynamics between therapist and patient. This group of researchers found that patients tended to have relatively stable behaviors that were consistent with the way their therapists treated them. Later, these researchers reported therapists' professional training was less important to successful therapy than the therapists' own developmental history. B. Intimate Relationships with Friends Elizabeth Yaughn and Stephen Nowicki studied intimate interpersonal relationships in same-gender dyads and found that women-but not men-had complementary interpersonal styles with their close women friends. Also, women were more likely than men to engage in a wide variety of activities with their intimate friend, a finding that suggests that women develop deeper same-gender friendships than do men. C. Imaginary Friends Other researchers have studied Sullivan's notion of imaginary playmates and have found that children who have identifiable eidetic playmates tend to be more socialized, less aggressive, more intelligent, and to have a better sense of humor than children who do not report having an imaginary playmate.

___________________ is an isolating dynamism that begins during early adolescence.

Lust

___________________ is defined as a feeling of living among one's enemies.

Malevolence

Discuss specific ways in which Sullivan's early experiences, especially during preadolescence, may have influenced his theory of personality.

Overview of Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory Although Sullivan had a lonely and isolated childhood, he evolved a theory of personality that emphasized the importance of interpersonal 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 stages.

Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory: Psychological Disorders

Sullivan believed that disordered behavior has an interpersonal origin, and can only be understood with reference to a person's social environment.

List and describe the basic personifications of interpersonal theory.

Sullivan believed that people acquire certain images of self and others throughout the developmental stages, and he referred to these subjective perceptions as personifications. A. Bad-Mother, Good-Mother The bad-mother personification grows out of infants' experiences with a nipple that does not satisfy their hunger needs. All infants experience the bad-mother personification, even though their real mothers may be loving and nurturing. Later, infants acquire a good-mother personification as they become mature enough to recognize the tender and cooperative behavior of their mothering one. Still later, these two personifications combine to form a complex and contrasting image of the real mother. B. Me Personifications During infancy, children acquire three "me" personifications: (1) the bad-me, which grows from experiences of punishment and disapproval, (2) the good-me, which results from experiences with reward and approval, and (3) the not-me, which allows a person to dissociate or selectively inattend the experiences related to anxiety. C. Eidetic Personifications One of Sullivan's most interesting observations was that people often create imaginary traits that they project onto others. Included in these eidetic personifications are the imaginary playmates that preschool-aged children often have. These imaginary friends enable children to have a safe, secure relationship with another person, even though that person is imaginary.

Compare and contrast tensions of needs and tensions of anxiety.

Sullivan conceptualized personality as an energy system, with energy existing either as tension (potentiality for action) or as energy transformations (the actions themselves). He further divided tensions into needs and anxiety. A. Needs Needs can relate either to the general well-being of a person or to specific zones, such as the mouth or genitals. General needs can be either physiological, such as food or oxygen, or they can be interpersonal, such as tenderness and intimacy. B. Anxiety Unlike needs-which are conjunctive and call for specific actions to reduce them-anxiety is disjunctive and calls for no consistent actions for its relief. All infants learn to be anxious through the empathic relationship that they have with their mothering one. Sullivan called anxiety the chief disruptive force in interpersonal relations. A complete absence of anxiety and other tensions is called euphoria.

Explain the process of psychotherapy from the perspective of interpersonal theory.

Sullivan pioneered the notion of the therapist as a participant observer, who establishes an interpersonal relationship with the patient. He was primarily concerned with understanding patients and helping them develop foresight, improve interpersonal relations, and restore their ability to operate mostly on a syntaxic level.

Name and define the three modes of cognition described by Sullivan.

Sullivan recognized three levels of cognition, or ways of perceiving things-prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic. A. Prototaxic Level Experiences that are impossible to put into words or to communicate to others are called prototaxic. Newborn infants experience images mostly on a prototaxic level, but adults, too, frequently have preverbal experiences that are momentary and incapable of being communicated. B. Parataxic Level Experiences that are prelogical and nearly impossible to accurately communicate to others are called parataxic. Included in these are erroneous assumptions about cause and effect, which Sullivan termed parataxic distortions. C. Syntaxic Level Experiences that can be accurately communicated to others are called syntaxic. Children become capable of syntaxic language at about 12 to 18 months of age when words begin to have the same meaning for them that they do for others.

Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory: Stages of Developement

Sullivan saw interpersonal development as taking place over seven stages, from infancy to mature adulthood. Personality changes can take place at any time but are more likely to occur during transitions between stages. A. Infancy The period from birth until the emergence of syntaxic language is called infancy, a time when the child receives tenderness from the mothering one while also learning anxiety through an empathic linkage with the mother. Anxiety may increase to the point of terror, but such terror is controlled by the built-in protections of apathy and somnolent detachment that allow the baby to go to sleep. During infancy children use autistic language, which takes place on a prototaxic or parataxic level. B. Childhood The stage that lasts from the beginning of syntaxic language until the need for playmates of equal status is called childhood. The child's primary interpersonal relationship continues to be with the mother, who is now differentiated from other persons who nurture the child. C. Juvenile Era The juvenile stage begins with the need for peers of equal status and continues until the child develops a need for an intimate relationship with a chum. At this time, children should learn how to compete, to compromise, and to cooperate. These three abilities, as well as an orientation toward living, help a child develop intimacy, the chief dynamism of the next developmental stage. D. Preadolescence Perhaps the most crucial stage is preadolescence, because mistakes made earlier can be corrected during preadolescence, but errors made during preadolescence are nearly impossible to overcome in later life. Preadolescence spans the time from the need for a single best friend until puberty. Children who do not learn intimacy during preadolescence have added difficulties relating to potential sexual partners during later stages. E. Early Adolescence With puberty comes the lust dynamism and the beginning of early adolescence. Development during this stage is ordinarily marked by a coexistence of intimacy with a single friend of the same gender and sexual interest in many persons of the opposite gender. However, if children have no preexisting capacity for intimacy, they may confuse lust with love and develop sexual relationships that are devoid of true intimacy. F. Late Adolescence Chronologically, late adolescence may start at any time after about age 16, but psychologically, it begins when a person is able to feel both intimacy and lust toward the same person. Late adolescence is characterized by a stable pattern of sexual activity and the growth of the syntaxic mode, as young people learn how to live in the adult world. G. Adulthood Late adolescence flows into adulthood, a time when a person establishes a stable relationship with a significant other person and develops a consistent pattern of viewing the world.

Identify the major dynamisms of Sullivanian theory.

Sullivan used the term dynamism to refer to a typical pattern of behavior. Dynamisms may relate either to specific zones of the body or to tensions. A. Malevolence The disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred is called malevolence, defined by Sullivan as a feeling of living among one's enemies. Those children who become malevolent have much difficulty giving and receiving tenderness or being intimate with other people. B. Intimacy The conjunctive dynamism marked by a close personal relationship between two people of equal status is called intimacy. Intimacy facilitates interpersonal development while decreasing both anxiety and loneliness. C. Lust In contrast to both malevolence and intimacy, lust is an isolating dynamism. That is, lust is a self-centered need that can be satisfied in the absence of an intimate interpersonal relationship. In other words, although intimacy presupposes tenderness or love, lust is based solely on sexual gratification and requires no other person for its satisfaction. D. Self-System The most inclusive of all dynamisms is the self-system, or that pattern of behaviors that protects us against anxiety and maintains our interpersonal security. The self-system is a conjunctive dynamism, but because its primary job is to protect the self from anxiety, it tends to stifle personality change. Experiences that are inconsistent with our self-system threaten our security and necessitate our use of security operations, which consist of behaviors designed to reduce interpersonal tensions. One such security operation is dissociation, which includes all those experiences that we block from awareness. Another is selective inattention, which involves blocking only certain experiences from awareness.

T/F According to Sullivan, intimacy should develop prior to adolescence.

True

T/F According to Sullivan, mental disorders stem from difficulties in interpersonal relations.

True

T/F Anxiety is a disjunctive tension.

True

T/F During preadolescence, children should develop a close friendship with another child who is similar to them.

True

T/F Early adolescence is usually a time when a person experiences lust for several people while retaining intimacy for a single chum.

True

T/F Needs arise because of an imbalance between a person and the environment.

True

T/F Sullivan believed that other people are indispensable in the development of one's personality.

True

T/F Sullivan regarded tensions as potentiality for action.

True

T/F Tenderness is a general need because it is concerned with the overall well-being of a child.

True

T/F The central problem of a Sullivanian therapist is to be a participant observer.

True

T/F To Sullivan the ideal time for learning competition, compromise, and cooperation is during the juvenile stage—that is, during the early elementary school years.

True

Sullivan believed that ________________________ is the chief disruptive force in interpersonal relations.

anxiety

Imaginary playmates are also called ___________________ personifications.

eidetic

An absence of tension and anxiety is called ___________________.

euphoria

"Everyone is much more simply ______________________ than unique," according to Sullivan.

human

According to Sullivan, humans have no existence outside the ____________________ situation.

interpersonal

An emphasis on ________________________________ is the outstanding characteristic of Sullivan's theory.

interpersonal relations

The dynamism of ______________________ reduces anxiety and loneliness.

intimacy

In Western culture, the _____________________ stage roughly corresponds to the first three years of school.

juvenile

The ___________________ dynamism typically takes place during early adolescence.

lust

The most crucial stage of development is ___________________, because mistakes made during earlier stages can be corrected at this time, but interpersonal difficulties during this stage may have a lasting effect on later personality development.

preadolescence

Momentary, undifferentiated experiences are called ____________________.

prototaxic

Most of Sullivan's early patients were _________________________, and Sullivan's mother probably also suffered from this disease.

schizophrenic

The ___________________________ is a conjunctive dynamism that grows out of interpersonal relationships and helps protect us from anxiety.

self-system

Sullivan believed that _______________________ among people are much more important than their differences.

similarities

Sullivan defined __________________ as potentiality for action.

tensions