Harry Stack Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory

Comprehensive vocabulary and concept flashcards based on Harry Stack Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory and Melanie Klein’s psychotherapy and nature views.

Interpersonal Theory (General)

A theory stating a person can never be isolated from the complex of interpersonal relations in which the person lives.

Healthy Human Development (Sullivan)

Rests on a person’s ability to establish intimacy with another person.

Preadolescence

According to Sullivan, the most crucial stage of development.

Tensions

A potentiality for action that may or may not be experienced in awareness.

Energy Transformations

The process of transforming tensions into either covert or overt behaviors aimed at satisfying needs and reducing anxiety.

Needs (Biological)

Tensions brought on by biological imbalance between a person and the physiochemical environment.

General Needs

Needs concerned with the overall being of a person.

Zonal Needs

Needs that arise from a particular area of the body.

Tenderness

The most basic interpersonal need, requiring actions from at least two people.

Anxiety

The chief disruptive force blocking the development of healthy interpersonal relations among adults.

Source of Anxiety (Infancy)

Transferred from the parent to the infant through the process of empathy.

Euphoria

The complete lack of tension.

Dynamisms

Typical patterns of behavior; includes those related to specific body zones and those related to tensions.

Disjunctive Dynamism

A class of dynamism that includes malevolence.

Malevolence

A disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred, characterized by the feeling of living among one’s enemy.

Isolating Dynamism

A class of dynamism that includes lust.

Lust

An isolating dynamism that requires no other person for its satisfaction and often leads to a reduction of self-esteem.

Conjunctive Dynamism

A class of dynamism that includes intimacy and the self-system.

Intimacy

A close interpersonal relationship between two people who are more or less of equal status.

Self-system

A dynamism that maintains interpersonal security by protecting people from anxiety.

Security Operations

Defenses against interpersonal tensions used to reduce feelings of insecurity or endangered self-esteem.

Dissociation

A security operation involving impulses, desires, and needs that a person refuses to allow into awareness.

Selective Inattention

A security operation defined as the refusal to see those things that we do not wish to see.

Personifications

Images people acquire of themselves and others, such as the Bad-Mother or Good-Me.

Bad-Mother Personification

Grows out of the infant’s experiences with the bad nipple that does not satisfy hunger.

Good-Mother Personification

Based on the tender and cooperative behaviors of the mothering one.

Bad-Me Personification

Fashioned from experiences of punishment and disapproval received from the mothering one.

Good-Me Personification

Resulting from the infant’s experience with reward and approval.

Not-Me Personification

Formed when an infant denies experiences to the me image, often resulting in uncanny emotions.

Uncanny Emotion

Feelings associated with the not-me personification, such as awe, horror, or loathing.

Eidetic Personifications

Imaginary traits projected onto others or unrealistic imaginary friends created to protect self-esteem.

Prototaxic Level

The earliest and most primitive level of cognition; experiences at this level are difficult to communicate.

Parataxic Level

Prelogical cognition resulting from assuming cause-and-effect between coincidental events.

Syntaxic Level

Experiences that are consensually validated and can be symbolically communicated.

Consensually Validated

Meaning that is agreed upon by two or more people.

Epochs

The name Sullivan gave to the stages of development.

Infancy (Stage)

Lasts from birth until the development of syntaxic speech, involving the mothering one as the significant other.

Autistic Language

Private language used by infants that makes little or no sense to other people.

Childhood (Stage)

Lasts from age $2$ to $6$, where significant others are the parents and syntaxic language is learned.

Dramatization

Attempts by a child to act like or sound like significant authority figures.

Preoccupations

Remaining occupied with an activity that has earlier proved useful or rewarding.

Juvenile Stage

Lasts from $6$ to $8½$ years, involving playmates of equal status and orientation toward peers.

Cooperation (Sullivan)

All those processes necessary to get along with others, learned during the juvenile stage.

Preadolescence Stage

Lasts from $8½$ to $13$ years, focused on intimacy with a single same-gender friend.

Genesis of the Capacity to Love

When the satisfaction or security of another person becomes as significant as one's own.

Early Adolescence Stage

Lasts from $13$ to $15$ years, marked by puberty and the need for sexual expression.

Late Adolescence Stage

Starts at age $15$, characterized by the fusion of intimacy and lust toward a lover.

Adulthood (Sullivan)

A period where people who have achieved the capacity to love do not need psychiatric counsel.

Sullivan’s Psychotherapy Objective

To improve a patient’s relationship with others.

Persecutory Fears

One of the two primary types of fears Klein's therapy aims to reduce in patients.

Depressive Anxieties

Anxieties that Klein’s therapy specifically focuses on reducing through play and fantasy exploration.

Malevolence Age Range

The period between age $2$ or $5$ years when this disjunctive dynamism typically appears.

Self-system Onset

The time period, approximately $12 - 18$ months, when this dynamism begins to form.

Episodic Tensions

A characteristic of needs, indicating they occur at intervals rather than continuously.

Infancy Significant Other

The Mothering One.

Childhood Significant Other

The Parents.

Juvenile Significant Other

Playmates of equal status.

Preadolescence Significant Other

A single friend.

Early Adolescence Significant Other

Several friends.

Late Adolescence Significant Other

A lover.

Convert Behaviors

Internal behaviors resulting from energy transformations, as opposed to overt actions.

Asocial Behavior

A type of behavior resulting from malevolence, along with timidity or cruelty.

Antisocial Behavior

A possible behavioral outcome of the disjunctive dynamism called malevolence.

Parent-Child Relationship and Intimacy

Intimacy is stated as not being common for this specific relationship type.

Bad Nipple

The specific infant experience that leads to the Bad-Mother personification.

Uncanny Emotion Example

Forms such as awe, horror, or loathing often found in dreams.

Imaginary Playmates (Childhood)

Significant others used during the childhood stage to protect security.

Malevolent Attitude Peak

This attitude reaches its peak during the preschool years.

Competition

One of the three important learnings of the Juvenile stage, along with compromise and cooperation.

Compromise

An important learning during the Juvenile stage for healthy socialization.

Self-Worth in Early Adolescence

Often becomes synonymous with sexual attractiveness and acceptance by opposite-sex peers.

Lust and Intimacy Fusion

The primary interpersonal process characteristic of Late Adolescence.

Lust vs Security Operations

Early adolescence involves finding a balance between lust, intimacy, and security operations.

Mothering One (Role)

The person from whom an infant becomes human through the receipt of tenderness.

Symbolic Communication

A key feature of the syntaxic level of cognition.

Consensual Validation Condition

Whenever a sound or gesture begins to have the same meaning for parents as for a child.

Disintegrative Behaviors

Behaviors resulting from anxiety that are nonproductive and block healthy relations.

Childish Wish for Security

A behavior pattern produced by anxiety that prevents learning from experience.

Physiochemical Environment

The environment involved in biological imbalances that produce tension.

Interpersonal Situation

The context from which many of our needs stem, according to Sullivan.

Malevolence Characteristic

The feeling of living among one’s enemy.

Reciprocal Emotions

A development in the childhood stage where emotions between the child and others start to flow both ways.

Orientation Toward Peer Living

The primary interpersonal process of the Juvenile stage ($6$ to $8½$ years).

Untroubled and Carefree Time

A description of the intimate relationship period in Preadolescence.

Lust Timing

Especially powerful during adolescence.

Security Operations Utility

They reduce feelings of insecurity or anxiety that result from endangered self-esteem.

Infancy Important Learnings

Distinguishing Good mother/bad mother and Good-me/Bad-me.

Late Adolescence Conflicts

Commonplace conflicts between parental control and self-expression.

Syntaxic Mode in Late Adolescence

A cognitive mode that continues to grow while discovers of self and the world are made.

Interpersonal Relations Defense

The act of using security operations to protect the self from anxiety.

Sullivan's Definition of Love

When the satisfaction or security of another person is as significant as one's own.