Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) has been described as 'the most original figure in American psychiatry'. Challenging Freud's psychosexual theory, Sullivan founded the interpersonal theory of psychiatry, which emphasized the role of interpersonal relations, society and culture as the primary determinants of personality development and psychopathology. This concise and coherent account of Sullivan's work and life invites the modern audience to rediscover the provocative, groundbreaking ideas embodied in Sullivan's interpersonal theory and psychotherapy.
Private Practices examines the relationship between science, sexuality, gender, race, and culture in the making of modern America between 1920 and 1950, when contradictions among liberal intellectuals affected the rise of U.S. conservatism. Naoko Wake focuses on neo-Freudian, gay psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan, founder of the interpersonal theory of mental illness. She explores medical and social scientists' conflicted approach to homosexuality, particularly the views of scientists who themselves lived closeted lives. Wake discovers that there was a gap--often dramatic, frequently subtle--between these scientists' "public" understanding of homosexuality (as a "disease") and their personal, private perception (which questioned such a stigmatizing view). This breach revealed a modern culture in which self-awareness and open-mindedness became traits of "mature" gender and sexual identities. Scientists considered individuals of society lacking these traits to be "immature," creating an unequal relationship between practitioners and their subjects. In assessing how these dynamics--the disparity between public and private views of homosexuality and the uneven relationship between scientists and their subjects--worked to shape each other, Private Practices highlights the limits of the scientific approach to subjectivity and illuminates its strange career--sexual subjectivity in particular--in modern U.S. culture.
The Psychiatric Interview is a unique book. It deals with the basic issues in psychiatric assessment-which, without guidance, may be distressingly difficult-and reduces them to easily digestible facts.
This volume collects for the first time the papers written by Dr. Sullivan in the period of his early work with schizophrenics. Introduction and commentaries by Helen Swick Perry.
This volume sets forth the central ideas of Dr. Sullivan's theory of personality. His view of psychiatry as the study of interpersonal relations has opened an entirely new approach to the treatment of mental disorders and the study of human personality.
Among clinicians, Harry Stack Sullivan is probably best known for his early work with schizophrenics at the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Maryland. The seminar presented here is the richest clinical illustration available both of Sullivan s perceptivity about schizophrenia and of his ability as a teacher."
