Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal theory emphasizes that personality development is shaped by interpersonal relationships rather than individual characteristics. Key concepts include anxiety, satisfaction of needs, interpersonal security, and the self-system, which comprises the 'good me', 'bad me', and 'not me'. Sullivan's framework highlights the importance of therapeutic communities in nursing practice, advocating for the development of interpersonal skills to enhance patients' well-being.

1. SULLIVAN’S INTERPERSONAL
THEORY OF PERSONALITY
DEVELOPMENT
Presented By:
Anam Abedeen
M.Sc. 1st
Yr.
Psychiatry Nursing
Submitted To:
Ms. Hepsi Bai J
Asst. Prof.
CON, AIIMS

2. CONTENTS:
• INTRODUCTION
• OVERVIEW OF THEORY
• SULLIVANS MAJOR CONCEPT:  Anxiety
 Satisfaction Of Needs
 Interpersonal Security
 Self System: Good Me
: Bad Me
: Not Me

3. CONT…
• SULLIVAN’S LIFE STAGES
• DEVELOPMENTAL AND COGNITIVE MODES
• THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY OR MILEU
• NURSE’s ROLE
• RESEARCH OUTPUT
• SUMMARY

4. INTRODUCTION:
● Born in February 21, 1892 at Norwich, New-
York.
● Received medical degree at Chicago
College
Of Medicine and Surgery in 1917.
● Founder of the journal Psychiatry in 1937
● Served as Psychiatric Advisor in 1940.
● Left the word in January 14, 1949 at Paris,
France. HARRY STACK SULLIVAN

5. OVERVIEW OF THEORY:
 Interpersonal theory of personality was proposed by Harry
Stack Sullivan.
 He believed that one’s personality involved more than individual
characteristics, particularly how one interacted with others.
 He also explained about the importance of current life events to
psychopathology.
 The theory further states that the purpose of all behavior is to
get needs met through interpersonal interactions and decrease
or avoid anxiety.

6. Harry Stack Sullivan (1953) believed that individual
behavior and personality development are the
direct result of interpersonal relationships.
Before the development of his own theoretical
framework, Sullivan embraced the concepts of
Freud.
Later, he changed the focus of his work from the
intrapersonal view of Freud to one with a more
interpersonal flavor in which human behavior could
be observed in social interactions with others.
His ideas, which were not universally accepted at
the time, have been integrated into the practice of
psychiatry through publication only since his death

7. Sullivan’s major
concept

8. Sullivan’s major concept:
ANXIETY SATISFACTION
OF NEEDS
INTERPERSONAL
SECURITY
SELF
SYSTEM
GOOD ME
BAD ME
NOT ME

9. • Anxiety is a feeling of
emotional discomfort,
toward the relief or
prevention of which all
behavior is aimed.
It arises out of one’s
inability to satisfy
needs or to achieve
interpersonal security.
ANXIETY
Y

10. • Anxiety is the “chief
disruptive force in
interpersonal relations
and the main factor in the
development of serious
difficulties in living”
CONT…Y

11. Satisfaction Of Needs:
It is the fulfillment of all
requirements associated with an
individual’s physiochemical
environment.
Examples include: oxygen, food,
water, warmth, tenderness, rest,
activity, sexual expression—virtually
anything that, when absent, produces
discomfort in the individual.

12. Interpersonal Security:
It is the feeling associated
with relief from anxiety.
When all needs have been
met, one experiences a
sense of total well-being.
He believed individuals have
an innate need for
interpersonal security.

13. Self system:
It is a collection of
experiences, or security
measures, adopted by the
individual to protect against
anxiety.
Sullivan identified three
components of the self-
system, which are based on
inter personal experiences
early in life: good me, bad me
& not me.

14. 1. The part of the personality that
develops in response to positive
feedback from the primary
caregiver.
2. Feelings of pleasure, contentment,
and gratification are experienced.
The child learns which behaviors
elicit this positive response as it
becomes incorporated into the
self-system.
Good Me:

15. 1. The part of the personality that
develops in response to negative
feedback from the primary
caregiver.
2. Anxiety is experienced, eliciting
feelings of discomfort,
displeasure, and distress. The
child learns to avoid these
negative feelings by altering
certain behaviors.
Bad Me:

16. 1. The part of the personality that
develops in response to situations
that produce intense anxiety in
the child.
2. Feelings of horror, awe, dread, and
loathing are experienced in
response to these situations,
leading the child to deny these
feelings in an effort to relieve
anxiety.
3. These feelings, having then been
denied, become “not me,” but
someone else. This withdrawal
from emotions has serious
Not me:

17. Sullivan’s life
stages:

18. infancy childhood juvenile
pre adolescence Early adolescence
Post adolescence

20. INFANCY

21. Infancy:
Birth to 18 Months.
During the beginning stage, the major
developmental task for the child is the
gratification of needs. This is
accomplished through activity
associated with the mouth, such as
crying, nursing, and thumb sucking.

22. CHILDHOOD:

23. Childhood
:Age: 18 Months to 6 Years
At ages 18 months to 6 years, the child learns that
interference with fulfillment of personal wishes and desires
may result in delayed gratification. He or she learns to
accept this and feel comfortable with it, recognizing that
delayed gratification often results in parental approval, a
more lasting type of reward. Tools of this stage include the
mouth, the anus, language, experimentation, manipulation,
and identification.

24. JUVENILE:

25. Juvenile:
Age: 6 to 9 Years
The major task of the juvenile stage is
formation of satisfactory relationships
within peer groups. This is
accomplished through the use of
competition, cooperation, and
compromise.

26. PRE ADOLESCENT

27. Pre adolescence:
Age: 9 to 12 Years
The tasks at the preadolescence stage focus on
developing relationships with persons of the
same gender. One’s ability to collaborate with and
show love and affection for another person
begins at this stage.

28. EARLY ADOLESCENT

29. Early Adolescence:
Age: 12 to 14 Years
During early adolescence, the child is struggling with
developing a sense of identity that is separate and
independent from the parents. The major task is formation
of satisfactory relationships with members of the opposite
gender. Sullivan saw the emergence of lust in response to
biological changes as a major force occurring during this
period.

30. LATE ADOLESCENT

31. Late adolescence:
Age: 14 to 21 Years
The late adolescent period is characterized by tasks
associated with the attempt to achieve
interdependence within the society and the
formation of a lasting, intimate relationship with a
selected member of the opposite gender. The genital
organs are the major developmental focus of this
stage.

33. Developmental and
cognitive modes

34. o Sullivan’s unique contribution to the role of cognition in personality
theory has to do with his development of a threefold classification of
experiences, for, says he, experiences occur in three different modes
-- prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic.
o These experiential modes merit a brief description in order to
appreciate their relevance to Sullivan’s interpersonal relations’
description of psychiatry. Sometimes called “types of experience“ and
sometimes called “types of cognition,“ this tripartite foundation of
personality encounters are worthy of close attention.

35. Prototaxi
c
Parataxic Syntaxic
DEVELOPMENTAL COGNITIVE MOODS

36. PROTOTAXIC
MODE
• Experiences that are impossible to
put into words or to communicate to
others are called prototaxic.
• In prototaxic mode, characteristic of
infancy and childhood involves brief
unconnected experiences that have
no relationship to one another.
• Adults with schizophrenia exhibit
persistent prototaxic experiences.

37. NT…
• The simplest and most fundamental mode of
experiencing reality at the beginning of life is what
Sullivan chose to call the prototoxic mode.
• It consists of essentially a flowing of sensations,
feelings, and images without any necessary
connection between them, a kind of “stream of
consciousness,“ if you will.
• Sullivan himself describes it this way: “It may be
regarded as the discrete series of momentary
states of the sensitive organism“.
• It occurs, of course, during the earliest months of
infancy and must precede the others as a
preparation for them.

38. PARATAXIC MODE: • Experiences that are pre-logical and
nearly impossible to accurately
communicate to others are called
parataxic.
• E.g.: When I see black cat I feel it as a
bad sign.
• Parataxic mode begins in early
childhood as the child begins to
connect experiences in sequence.
• The child may not make logical sense
of the experiences and may see
them as coincidence or chance
events. The child seeks to relieve
anxiety by repeating familiar
experiences, although he or she may
not understand what he or she is
doing. • Sullivan explained paranoid
ideas and slips of the tongue as a
person operating in the parataxic

39. NT…
• The parataxic mode of thinking, Sullivan
explains, consists of seeing causal relationships
between events that occur at about the same
time but which are not logically related.
• Getting the connection wrong is what this mode
of experience is all about. It is magical thinking,
says he, for there is no logical connection
between two events experienced by the child in
which the child assumes there is.
• In childhood it occurs regularly when the child
assumes that something he has done is the
cause of something that is quite decidedly
unrelated but he thinks it is.
• In adulthood, the residuals of parataxis modes
of experiencing occur in such things as the
presumed relationship between “praying hard“
and “getting well.“

40. SYNTAXIC MODE:
• Experiences that can be accurately
communicated to others are called
syntaxic.
• In the syntaxic mode, which begins
to appear in school-aged children
and becomes more predominant
in preadolescence, the person
begins to perceive himself or
herself and the world within the
context of the environment and
can analyze experiences in a
variety of settings.
• Maturity may be defined as
predominance of the syntaxic
mode.

41. NT… • Finally, the third and most advanced mode of
experience is called syntaxic and it corresponds
to logical, analytical thought.
• Syntaxic experience of reality thus presupposes
the ability to understand physical and spatial
causality, and the ability to predict causes from
knowledge of their effects.
• The meaning of words and the use of numbers
constitute the most poignant examples of the
function of syntaxic experience.
• when the child learns the meaning of specific
words and their uses and the nature of
numbers and how they work, the child has
reached this level of experiential sophistication
needed in the development of interpersonal
relationships.

42. Therapeutic community
or milieu

43. • The concept of milieu therapy, involves clients interaction with one
another; i.e., practicing interpersonal relationship skills, giving one
another feedback about behavior and working cooperatively as a
group
to solve day-to-day problems.
• The first therapeutic community or milieu was developed by Sullivan in
1929.
• In the concept of milieu, the interaction among client is seen as
beneficial and treatment emphasizes the role of this client-to-client
interaction.
• Today, inpatient hospital stays are often too short for clients to develop
THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY OR MILIEU

44. • Sullivan’s interpersonal theory has a significance relevance to nursing
practice.
• Nurses develop therapeutic relationships with clients in an effort to
help
them generalize this ability to interact successfully with others.
• Nurses use the concepts of Sullivan’s theory to help clients achieve a
higher degree of independent and interpersonal functioning.
• Nurses use Sullivan’s techniques and approaches in psychiatric
interview.
Relevance Of Interpersonal Theory To Nursing Practice:

45. • Patient and nurse should be in dyad
partnership.
• Nurse should provide the patient an
atmosphere
of uncritical acceptance and the patient speaks
out openly.
• Nurses should interact as a person who has
beliefs, values, thoughts and feelings.
• Patient should share his concerns with the
nurse
and participate in the relationship to the best of
Nurse’s and patient role:

46. Research output
TITLE: The Analysis of Attachment Styles through Interpersonal
Circumplex Description
AUTHORS: Wen Xue, Shouying Zhao
KEYWORDS: Interpersonal Circumplex, Attachment Style, Interpersonal Relationship,
Dyads
JOURNAL NAME: Psychology, Vol.2 No.7, October 27, 2011
ABSTRACT: The study explored how the dyads with different attachment styles behave
towards Leary’s circumplex in cooperative and competitive tasks. 100 strangers as a
sample were surveyed through two experiments on computer, by using RBQ (Riverside
Behavioral Q-sort) to examine their interpersonal traits through rated by experimenters.
Relation Questionnaire (RQ) and ECR were also used to measure their attachment styles.
There are three conclusions based on the results of this study that: 1) Individuals of
different attachment styles in interpersonal interaction had shown different trend of
interpersonal styles; 2) Individuals of different attachment styles take up different area
in interpersonal circumplex, which proves that it is continuous not discrete of

47. Research output
The Interpersonal Psychotherapy of Harry Stack Sullivan: Remembering the Legacy
John H. Morgan*
History and Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Graduate Theological Foundation, USA
*
Corresponding Author: John H. Morgan, Karl Mannheim Professor of the History and Philosophy
of the Social Sciences, Graduate Theological Foundation (US), Dodge House 415 Lincoln Way
East, Mishawaka, Indiana 46544, USA
Abstract:
Having recently celebrated the centennial of the commencing of Harry Stack Sullivan’s
distinguished medical career (M.D., 1911), it seems appropriate that both a review of his life
and work be brought before a forgetful public and to draw attention to the contribution he
has made to contemporary psychotherapeutic practice as the “father of modern psychiatry”
as some in the field have insistently claimed. The integration of the social scientific
understanding of human relationships with sound psychiatric practice elevated Sullivan’s
work to a whole new school of thought in which “interpersonal” psychotherapy became the
beneficiary. Social science and medicine were collapsed into a theoretical system of thought
that has contributed to a much more dynamic and organic understanding of social behaviour
within the matrix of personal relationships and mental illness. Such is the contribution of

48. Conclusion:
.Relationship development, which is a major concept of this
theory, is a major psychiatric nursing intervention. Nurses
develop therapeutic relationships with clients in an effort to
help them generalize this ability to interact successfully with
others. Knowledge about the behaviors associated with all
levels of anxiety and methods for alleviating anxiety helps
nurses to assist clients achieve interpersonal security and a
sense of well-being. Nurses use the concepts of Sullivan’s
theory to help clients achieve a higher degree of

49. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
• Mary C. Townsend.(2015). Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing
(8th ed.). P. 32-33.
• Sheila L. Vildebeck.(2011). Psychiatric - Mental Health Nursing
(8th ed.). P. 48-50.
• https://nursekey.com/working-with-children/
• https://www.longdom.org/open-access/the-interpersonal-
psychotherapy-of-harry-stack-sullivan-remembering-the-legacy-
10603.html

50. A picture is
worth a
thousand
words