Harry Stack Sullivan: biography of this psychoanalyst

The history of the study of psychology, although of relatively recent beginning, is full of important figures and of different schools and currents of thought. All of them have contributed his vision regarding the psyche and behavior, in some cases opposing each other. Among the different schools of thought we can find the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic current, centered on the existence of intrapsychic conflicts due to the repression of impulses and the attempt to adjust them to the reality of the half.

One of the authors of the psychodynamic current, considered within the neo-Freudians and who, like Alfred Adler Y Carl Jung they distanced themselves from Sigmund Freud to create his own vision of psychoanalysis was Harry Stack Sullivan, creator of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis. In this article we are going to review his life, making a short biography of this important author.

A short biography of Harry Stack Sullivan

One of the great figures of the psychodynamic currents, Harry Stack Sullivan

He is known for the creation of interpersonal psychoanalysis, based on the importance of interaction between people in personal development and in the creation of identity. and his personality, and his expansion of psychoanalysis in the population with psychotic disorders and the application of a more empirical methodology compared to other psychoanalysts. The development of his theories is largely influenced by his life experience.

Childhood and early years

Harry Stack Sullivan was born on February 21, 1892, in Norwich, New York. Son of Timothy Sullivan and Ella Stack SullivanHe was born into a poor family of Irish origin with Catholic beliefs. His relationship with his parents was apparently turbulent, with no close relationship with his father and little affection from his mother. However, he would have a better bond with his Aunt Margaret, who would be very supportive.

The family had to move due to lack of resources to a farm owned by the maternal family in Smyrna. His first years were not easy, feeling rejected and socially isolated (it is believed that he did not have a true friendship until he was eight years old, with the young Clarence Belliger) by living in a majority Protestant population where Catholics were unwelcome, possessing a shy nature, and excelling in the studies.

Training and first jobs

Despite coming from a family with few resources (although the one of maternal origin was somewhat wealthier) he would go on to enroll in Cornwell University in 1909 after finishing high school, but for some reason (it is believed that he suffered a psychotic break that would lead him to be detained in an institution) he would not finish his studies there, having only attended his first year.

With the passage of time, Sullivan would enter the Chicago School of Medicine in 1911, graduating in Medicine and Surgery in 1917.

The fact that the First World War began in 1914 would cause him to be called up, participating in the conflict as a military doctor in the Army Veterans medical corps. In 1921 he began to work at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, where he would meet neuropsychiatrist William Alanson White and work with schizophrenic people for the first time. With him, Sullivan would work to adapt psychoanalysis to the psychotic population, especially in the case of schizophrenia.

A year later he would go to work for the first time as a psychiatrist at Sheppard & Enoch Pratt Hospital, where he would stand out for connecting quickly with patients and obtaining good results.

Link to psychoanalysis and elaboration of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis

During his stay at Sheppard% Enoch he would meet Clara Thompson, with whom she would share her affinity for treating schizophrenia and would become one of his closest friends. This would introduce him to his mentor Adolf Meyer, from whom Sullivan would learn psychoanalytic practice as well as skepticism about the orthodoxy of classical psychoanalysis.

She, too, would meet in 1926 (the same year her mother died) the anthropologist and ethnolinguist Edward Sapir, whose collaboration would make her interested in the study of communication and its effects. Through him she met George mead, from whom he would acquire numerous concepts.

Also interested in Ferenczi's ideas, she proposed to Thompson that she go to Budapest to be analyzed by him, in 1927. Upon his return, Thompson became Sullivan's analyst, eventually leading to his acceptance into the American Psychoanalytic Society. Also in 1927 she would meet a young man named Jimmy whom she would end up adopting and becoming her secretary and sole heir.

All this set of circumstances would mean that during his stay in the hospital (of which he would become Director of Clinical Research), she Sullivan was partially based on the theory of Sigmund Freud (with whom she never came into contact) and on from it the contributions of other disciplines to develop a model that could explain the circumstances that can lead to a crisis psychotic. This would lead him to end up elaborating his interpersonal theory, which would eventually lead him to found interpersonal psychoanalysis..

Sullivan would be aware of the importance of pooling the contributions of various disciplines, which would lead him to try to found several organizations together with other professionals. However, some of these companies would virtually bankrupt you.

Last years and death

From 1930 he would leave his position at Sheppard Hospital (due to the fact that despite participating very actively in the creation of a new her center and her work was not granted and in addition the provision of funds for her research began to be canceled) and she would move to new York.

Three years later she founded, together with other professionals, the William Alanson White Foundation, to then create the Washington School of Psychiatry in 1936 and finally the publication Psychiatry in 1938. He would also collaborate with various hospitals and universities, serving as professor and head of the department of psychiatry at Georgetown University. Later, from 1940 on, he would carry out several collaborations with the World Health Organization and Unesco..

Sullivan died on January 14, 1949 in Paris due to a brain hemorrhage, while resting in a room. from a hotel where he was spending the night on his return trip from a meeting of the World Federation for Mental Health in Amsterdam.

Although he may not be as well known as other authors in the psychoanalytic current, the contributions of Sullivan have had a wide repercussion in the world of psychology, serving as a basis for authors as known as Carl rogers.

Bibliographic references:

• Barton, F. (1996). Harry Stack Sullivan. Interpersonal theory and psychotherapy. Rouledge London and New York. New York.