Harry Stack Sullivan (1892–1949): Hero, Ghost, and Muse

Abstract

SUMMARY The author summarizes major contributions of Harry Stack Sullivan (1892–1949) that lie outside his well-known contributions to the interpersonal school of psychoanalysis. She describes him first as a tragic hero who tried to depathologize homosexuality in psychiatry and in Selective Service screening procedures–a role immortalized in John Fisher's 1996 play, Combat! She also interprets features of his “personality” in light of his “theorem of reciprocal emotion.” She then explores ways that he haunts the family psychology and therapy literature as a “ghost” who influenced Nathan Ackerman, Carl Whitaker, Don Bloch, Don Jackson, Robin Skynner, Salvador Minuchin, and R. D. Laing; and as a “buried ancestor” whose ideas pervade the family therapy literature. Finally, she summarizes his role as “muse” to pastoral theologians, emphasizing Sullivan's reciprocal influence on Anton T. Boisen in their explorations of the role of concealment and cosmic dramas in psychosis; his life-changing effect on O. H. Mowrer, who incorporated Sullivanian ideas into his integrity therapy; and the centrality of Sullivan for the dimension of the “we” in Paul E. Johnson's “dynamic interpersonalism.”