Harry Stack Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory

Harry Stack Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory of Personality Development it is one of the best known in the field of psychoanalysis.

In this article we will describe the main concepts and postulates of this model, whose focus on the interpersonal relationships influenced in a very significant way the later developments of the psychotherapy.

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The interpersonal theory of H. S. Sullivan

Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) published in 1953 the work "The interpersonal theory of psychiatry"; in this he developed his personality model, which is framed in the paradigm of psychoanalysis. More specifically, we can classify Sullivan in neo-Freudianism, along with authors such as Carl Jung, Karen horney, Erik Fromm or Erik Erikson.

Sullivan defended a conception of psychiatry according to which this science should have as its object of study the interactions between human beings. In this way he highlighted the fundamental relevance of interpersonal relationships

(both real and imaginary) in the configuration of the personality, and consequently also of psychopathology.

For this author, personality can be defined as a pattern of behavior related to situations of interaction with other people. It would be a stable and complex entity, determined both by physiological and innate interpersonal skills such as learning through early experiences and the process of socialization.

In this sense, the personality would be progressively formed based on contact with the social environment and one's own capacity. to satisfy the needs, as well as the tension that these cause both from a biological point of view and from one psychological. Failures in this type of learning and the lack of psychological adaptation would lead to pathology.

The personality theory of H. S. Sullivan, and in particular his focus on social interactions, led to the emergence of the school of interpersonal psychoanalysis. This current also differs from the Freudian variant in its interest in individuality and in the importance it gives to the mutual relationship between therapist and patient.

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Stable factors that form the personality

According to Sullivan, the construct we know as "personality" is made up of three stable aspects: dynamisms and needs, the System of the Self and the personifications.

All of them develop from interaction with other people and from how we resolve our physiological and social urges.

1. Needs and dynamisms

Interpersonal psychoanalysis defines two great sets of human needs: those of self-satisfaction and those of security. The former are associated with physiology and include food, excretion, activity, or sleep; security needs are more psychological in nature, such as avoiding anxiety and maintaining self-esteem.

Dynamisms are complex patterns of behavior and more or less stable that have the function of satisfying a certain basic need - or, in Sullivan's words, of “transforming the physical energy of the organism”. There are two types of dynamisms: those that are related to specific parts of the body and those associated with experiences of fear and anxiety.

2. The Self System

The Ego System develops throughout childhood as we experience anxiety and alleviate it through other people. It is a psychic structure that fulfills the function of managing anxiety, that is, dealing with security needs. With age, it also adopts the function of protecting self-esteem and social image.

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3. The personifications

Sullivan uses the term "personification" to refer to the ways in which children interpret the world: attributing to people and groups characteristics of others, based on interaction experiences as well as on beliefs and fantasies personal. The impersonations will have great importance in social relationships throughout life.

Modes of experience: the development of the mind

Following Sullivan's approaches, the personality is formed by transferring the interpersonal to the intrapsychic. In this way, if the needs of a person during childhood are satisfactorily met, they will achieve a sense of self-confidence and security; if not, you will develop a tendency to feel insecure and anxious.

The ways we experience our physical and social environment They change according to age, the degree of mastery of the language and the correct satisfaction of needs. In this sense Sullivan described three modes of experience: the prototaxic, the parataxic and the syntactic. Each of them is subordinate to those that appear later.

1. Prototaxic experience

Babies experience life as a succession of unrelated organismic states. There is no conception of causality or a true sense of time. Progressively you will become aware of the parts of the body that interact with the outside, in which there are feelings of tension and relief.

2. Parataxic experience

During childhood, people differentiate ourselves from the environment and obtain knowledge about the ways to satisfy our needs; This allows the appearance of personal symbols through which we establish relationships between events and sensations, such as those of causality.

Sullivan spoke of "parataxic distortion" to refer to the emergence of experiences of this type in later stages of life. They consist fundamentally in relating to others in a way equivalent to that which occurred with significant others in the past; this would manifest itself in the transfer, for example.

3. Syntactic experience

When the development of the personality occurs in a healthy way, syntactic thinking appears, which has a sequential and logical character and is constantly modified according to the new experiences. What's more symbols are validated through consensus with other people, which gives a social meaning to the behavior.