Harry Stack Sullivan: Biography Of This Psychoanalyst
The history of the study of psychology, although relatively recent, is full of important figures and different schools and currents of thought. All of them have contributed their vision regarding the psyche and behavior, in some cases contrasting each other. Among the different schools of thought we can find the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic current, focused on the existence of intrapsychic conflicts due to the repression of impulses and the attempt to adjust them to the reality of the environment.
One of the authors of the psychodynamic current, considered among the neo-Freudians and who, like Alfred Adler and Carl Jung, distanced themselves from Sigmund Freud to create their own vision of psychoanalysis, was Harry Stack Sullivan, creator of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis In this articles we are going to review his life, creating a short biography of this important author.
One of the great figures of psychodynamic currents, Harry Stack Sullivan is known for the creation of interpersonal psychoanalysis, based on the importance of interaction between people in personal development and the creation of identity and personality, and its 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 greatly influenced by his experience throughout life
Childhood and early years
Harry Stack Sullivan was born on February 21, 1892 in Norwich, New York. Son of Timothy Sullivan and Ella Stack Sullivan, was born into a family with few resources of Irish origin with Catholic beliefs. His relationship with his parents was apparently turbulent, with no close relationship with his father and receiving little affection from his mother. However, he would have a better bond with his Aunt Margaret, who would provide him with great support.
The family had to move due to lack of resources to a farm owned by the mother’s 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) while living in a predominantly Protestant town where Catholics were not welcome, having a shy nature and excel in studies.
Training and first jobs
Despite coming from a family of few resources (although his mother’s origin was somewhat wealthier) he would enroll at Cornwell University in 1909 after finishing secondary school, but due to some circumstance (it is believed that he suffered a psychotic break that would lead to being detained in an institution) he would not be able to finish his studies there, having only completed his first year.
As time went by, Sullivan managed to enter the Chicago Medical School 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 would begin working at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, where he would meet the neuropsychiatrist William Alanson White and would work for the first time with schizophrenic people. 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 the Sheppard & Enoch Pratt Hospital, where he would stand out for connecting quickly with patients and obtaining good results.
Link to psychoanalysis and development of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis
During his stay at the Sheppard % Enoch would meet Clara Thompson, with whom he would share his affinity for the treatment of schizophrenia and would become one of his closest friends. She would introduce him to his mentor Adolf Meyer, from whom Sullivan would learn psychoanalytic practice as well as skepticism regarding the orthodoxy of classical psychoanalysis.
He would also meet in 1926 (the same year his 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 she would acquire numerous concepts.
Also interested in Ferenczi’s ideas, he proposed to Thompson that she go to Budapest to be analyzed by him in 1927. Upon her return, Thompson would become Sullivan’s analyst, which would finally lead to him being accepted into the American Society of Medicine. Psychoanalysis. Also in 1927 she would meet a young man named Jimmy whom she would end up adopting and making her secretary and sole heir.
This whole set of circumstances would mean that during his stay at the hospital (where he would become Director of Clinical Research), Sullivan would partially base himself on the theory of Sigmund Freud (with whom he never had contact) and on the contributions from other disciplines to develop a model that could explain the circumstances that can lead to a psychotic crisis. This would lead him to end up developing his interpersonal theory, which would eventually lead him to found interpersonal psychoanalysis
Sullivan would be aware of the importance of uniting 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 practically bankrupt him.
Final years and death
Starting in 1930, he would leave his position at the Sheppard Hospital (because despite participating very actively in the creation of a new center and his work, he was not granted and the provision of funds for his research began to be canceled) and He would move to New York.
Three years later, together with other professionals, he would found the William Alanson White Foundation, then create the Washington School of Psychiatry in 1936 and finally the publication Psychiatry in 1938. He would also collaborate with several hospitals and universities, serving as professor and head of the psychiatry department at Georgetown University. Later, starting in 1940, he would carry out several collaborations with the World Health Organization and UNESCO
Sullivan would die on January 14, 1949 in Paris due to a brain hemorrhage, while resting in a hotel room where he spent the night during his return trip from a meeting of the World Federation of Mental Health in Amsterdam.
Although he may not be as well known as other authors of the psychoanalytic movement, Sullivan’s contributions have had a wide impact in the world of psychology, serving as a basis for such well-known authors as Carl Rogers.
