Harry Stack Sullivan

Harry Stack Sullivan (actually Herbert Stack Sullivan, born February 21, 1892 in Norwich, New York, † January 14, 1949 in Paris, France) was an American psychiatrist and representatives of Neopsychoanalyse.

Biography

1917 Sullivan earned his medical degree at the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery. In 1921 he began under the guidance of William Alanson White at St. Elizabeth 's Hospital in Washington, DC to treat schizophrenic patient in psychotherapy. He can be considered a pioneer of psychodynamic - psychotherapeutic treatment of psychotic patients who did Freud for unanalysierbar.

1923 Sullivan at Sheppard -and- Enoch Pratt Hospital in Towson, Maryland opened a special schizophrenics Department. Publications about his sensational healing results Sullivan made ​​known among psychiatrists in the USA. In contrast to the prevailing view of biological psychiatry, he took the view that schizophrenia have biographical references and causes, and therefore could be cured with therapy. In 1923 he met for the first time Clara Thompson ( 1893-1958 ), which was then working as a psychiatrist at the Phipps Clinic of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, which was led by the immigrant from Switzerland Adolf Meyer ( 1866-1950 ). Opened in 1930, Sullivan a private practice in New York, taught at the Maryland School of Medicine and organized the " New psychoanalytic " union " in Washington and Baltimore, whose first president was Clara Thompson.

In 1933, he underwent a training analysis with Clara Thompson, who was in turn by Sandor Ferenczi analysand.

During this time, Sullivan met in New York Erich Fromm and Karen Horney, who had come on the run in the United States before National Socialism. Together with Thompson Silverberg and she grappled with Sullivan's concept of Psychiatry Interpersonal and developed the Neopsychoanalyse. The inclusion of the other social sciences led to the collaboration with the anthropologist Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Bronislaw Malinowski, the linguist Edward Sapir and others.

In 1938 the journal Psychiatry was founded, which became the main voice of the interpersonal direction in psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

1939 after the death of his friend Edward Sapir Sullivan left New York and moved to Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington ( DC). Shortly thereafter, he began an intensive training activity for the doctors and nursing staff of the private clinic Chestnut Lodge in Rockville, Maryland, which later became internationally famous for their pioneering work in the treatment of schizophrenics. The autobiographical book by Hannah Green aka Joanne Greenberg I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Report a cure ( " I Never Promised You a Rose Garden ", New York, 1964 ), which was also made ​​into a film, is about Chestnut Lodge and the psychotherapist Frieda Fromm- Reichmann.

1943 founded Sullivan, Clara Thompson, Erich Fromm and Frieda Fromm- Reichmann, the William Alanson White Institute in New York.

Interpersonal theory

Sullivan used for the psychiatry the conceptual framework of modern physics ( field theory ): Human behavior he understood not as isolated events but as a series of processes that result from the interaction of various forces within a field of action. He was influenced by Adolf Meyer, who was the then untimely believes that every human behavior implies an answer and tried to solve the questions of life in health and disease. In this sense, the behavior of schizophrenic patients had to somehow make sense, and it was much more the fault of the psychiatrist as the patient that the two are not understood. Meyer's " dynamic concept " led Sullivan after the actual goals and intentions are difficult to understand his patients to investigate and he found ways to heal the so-called " incurable mental patients " pure psychotherapy can

The principle of development is at the center of Sullivan's teaching. The Persönlichkeitswerdung is entirely explained by the interpersonal ( interpersonal ) relationship: The personality arises due to " relatively permanent patterns of recurrent interpersonal situations which characterize human life ." For coining of the individual cultural factors must be taken into account according to Sullivan. Although humans depends on innate biological factors, the significant differences in the human personality are determined primarily by individual interpersonal experiences. Here, show striking similarities with the psychoanalytic object relations theory and self psychology. In addition to the great importance of interpersonal experience during early childhood, he drew attention to the importance of youth for corrective experiences. The therapist instructed Sullivan to the role of a participating observer.

Sullivan has his theory held in his important book, The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry, which was published posthumously in 1953 and 1980 in German under the title The interpersonal theory of psychiatry in the S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main has been published. The most comprehensive biography of the life and work has left the Italian- German psychoanalyst Marco Conci: " Rediscovering Sullivan. Harry Stack Sullivan's life and work and its relevance to psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, " which appeared in Psycho Social -Verlag, Giessen, 2005.