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Interpersonal psychoanalysis is based on the theories of American
psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
Harry Stack Sullivan Herbert "Harry" Stack Sullivan (February 21, 1892, Norwich, New York – January 14, 1949, Paris, France) was an American Neo-Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who held that "personality can never be isolated from the complex interpersonal r ...
(1892–1949). Sullivan believed that the details of a patient's interpersonal interactions with others can provide insight into the causes and cures of
mental disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
. Current practitioners stress such features as the detailed description of clinical experience, the mutuality of the interpersonal process, and the not-knowing of the analyst.


Sullivan and the neo-Freudians

Along with other
neo-Freudian Neo-Freudianism is a psychoanalytic approach derived from the influence of Sigmund Freud but extending his theories towards typically social or cultural aspects of psychoanalysis over the biological. The neo-Freudian school of psychiatrists and p ...
practitioners of interpersonal psychoanalysis, such as
Horney Horney is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Amanda Horney (1857–1953), Swedish politician * Brigitte Horney (1911–1988), German actress * Jane Horney (1918–1945), Swedish woman, believed to have spied in Denmark for the ...
, Fromm,
Thompson Thompson may refer to: People * Thompson (surname) * Thompson M. Scoon (1888–1953), New York politician Places Australia *Thompson Beach, South Australia, a locality Bulgaria * Thompson, Bulgaria, a village in Sofia Province Canada ...
and Fromm-Reichman, Sullivan repudiated Freudian drive theory. They, like Sullivan, also shared the interdisciplinary emphasis that was to be an important part of the legacy of interpersonal psychoanalysis, influencing counsellors, clergymen, social workers and more.


Selective inattention

Sullivan proposed that patients could keep certain aspects or components of their interpersonal relationships out of their awareness by a psychological behavior described as selective inattention - a term that has to a degree passed into common usage. A
defence mechanism In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism (American English: defense mechanism), is an unconscious psychological operation that functions to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and o ...
that functions prior to
psychological repression Repression is a key concept of psychoanalysis, where it is understood as a defence mechanism that "ensures that what is unacceptable to the conscious mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering into it." According to psy ...
, and acts by way of blocking all notice of the threat in question, selective inattention can also be accompanied by selective non-participation. Both defences as used by patients may be usefully identified by the analyst through examination of his/her
countertransference Countertransference is defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client – or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client. Early formulations The phenomenon of countertransference (german: G ...
.


Personifications

Sullivan emphasized that
psychotherapist Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome prob ...
s' analyses should focus on patients' relationships and personal interactions in order to obtain knowledge of what he called personifications – one's internalised views of self and others, one's internal schemata. Such analyses would consist of detailed questioning regarding moment-to-moment personal interactions, even including those with the analyst himself. Personifications can form the basis for what Sullivan called parataxic distortions of the interpersonal field – distortions similar to those described as the products of
transference Transference (german: Übertragung) is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which the "feelings, attitudes, or desires" a person had about one thing are subconsciously projected onto the here-and-now Other. It usually concerns feelings from a ...
and
projective identification Projective identification is a term introduced by Melanie Klein and then widely adopted in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Projective identification may be used as a type of defense, a means of communicating, a primitive form of relationship, or a ...
in orthodox psychoanalysis. As with the latter, parataxic distortion can, if identified by the analyst, prove fruitful clues to the nature of the patient's inner world.


Criticism

Sullivan has been criticised for inventing (sometimes opaque) neologisms for established psychoanalytic concepts, to claim a perhaps spurious intellectual independence.B. F. Evans, in Brinich, ''Self'' p. 65


See also


References

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Further reading

* Curtis, R. C. & Hirsch, I. (2003). Relational Approaches to Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. In Gurman, A. G. & Messer, S. B. Essential Psychotherapies. NY: Guilford. * Curtis, R. C. (2008). Desire, Self, Mind & the Psychotherapies. Unifying Psychological Science and Psychoanalysis. Lanham, MD & New York: Jason Aronson. * D. B. Stern/C. H. Mann eds., ''Pioneers of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis'' (1995) Psychoanalytic schools