Chapter 8 - Sullivan

Question 0

What is Sullivan’s concept of needs?

Answer 0

• brought on by imbalances between person & environment (internal or external)
• biological initially; can become interpersonal
• most basic interpersonal need is tenderness
• general needs concerned w/ overall well-being (tenderness, oxygen, food, water)
• zonal needs arise from particular area of body

Question 1

What are tensions, according to Sullivan?

Answer 1

Potentialities for action that may or may not be experienced in awareness

• transformed into either covert or overt behaviours by energy transformations
• 2 types: needs & anxiety

Question 2

How does Sullivan view anxiety?

Answer 2

• diffuse and vague, disjunctive, calls forth no consistent action
• transferred from parent via empathy
• prevents satisfaction of needs
• blocks development of healthy interpersonal relationships

Question 3

How does Sullivan define euphoria?

Answer 3

Complete lack of tension

Question 4

What did Sullivan refer to as dynamisms?

Answer 4

Behaviour patterns of energy transformations

• malevolence: disjunctive, evil & hatred
• intimacy: close relationship of equal status
• lust: isolating; autoerotic
• self-system: consistent pattern of behaviours that protect from anxiety & maintain interpersonal security

Question 5

What are security operations?

Answer 5

Behaviours aimed at reducing interpersonal tension; remain active in unconscious fashion

• dissociation: impulses, desires, and needs that one refuses to allow into awareness
• selective inattention: refusal to see that which one does not want to see (more accessible to awareness & more limited in scope than dissociation)

Question 6

What are personifications, according to Sullivan?

Answer 6

Images of ourselves and others

• bad-mother, good-mother
• bad-me, good-me, not-me
• eidetic personifications: unrealistic traits or imaginary friends

Question 7

What are the levels of cognition, according to Sullivan?

Answer 7

• prototaxic: early, primitive experiences that can’t be communicated to others
• parataxic: prelogical; more clearly differentiated; communicated in distorted fashion
• syntaxic: consensually validated experiences that can be symbolically communicated (usually through language)

Question 8

What is a parataxic distortion?

Answer 8

An illogical belief that a cause-effect relationship exists between two events in close temporal proximity

Question 9

What is uncanny emotion?

Answer 9

Sudden severe anxiety; early warning for schizophrenic reactions

Question 10

What are Sullivan’s stages of development?

Answer 10

• infancy: good/bad mother; good/bad me
• childhood: syntaxic language
• juvenile era: competition, cooperation, compromise
• affection & respect from peers (chumship)
• early adolescence: balance of lust, intimacy, and security
• late adolescence: discovery of self & world outside self
• adulthood: stable love relationship

Question 11

What is Sullivan’s approach to psychotherapy?

Answer 11

Therapist acts as participant and observer & attempts to improve patient’s interpersonal relations