Editing Harry Stack Sullivan (section)

==Work==
Along with [[Clara Thompson]], [[Karen Horney]], [[Erich Fromm]], [[Otto Allen Will Jr.]], [[Erik H. Erikson]], and [[Frieda Fromm-Reichmann]], Sullivan laid the groundwork for understanding the individual based on the network of relationships in which they are enmeshed. He developed a theory of psychiatry based on interpersonal relationships<ref>{{cite journal |author=Rioch DM |title=Recollections of Harry Stack Sullivan and of the development of his interpersonal psychiatry |journal=Psychiatry |volume=48 |issue=2 |pages=141–58 |date=May 1985 |doi=10.1080/00332747.1985.11024276 |pmid=3887444 }}</ref> where cultural forces are largely responsible for [[mental illness]]es ''(see also [[social psychiatry]])''. In his words, one must pay attention to the "interactional", not the "intrapsychic". This search for satisfaction via personal involvement with others led Sullivan to characterize [[loneliness]] as the most painful human experience. He also extended Freudian psychoanalysis to the treatment of patients with severe mental disorders, particularly [[schizophrenia]].

Besides making the first mention of the [[significant other]] in psychological literature, Sullivan developed the idea of the "[[Self system]]", a configuration of the personality traits developed in childhood and reinforced by positive affirmation and the security operations developed in childhood to avoid anxiety and threats to self-esteem. Sullivan further defined the Self System as a steering mechanism toward a series of I-You interlocking behaviors—that is, what an individual does is meant to elicit a particular reaction.

Sullivan called these behaviors [[Parataxical Integration]]s and noted that such action-reaction combinations can become rigid and dominate an adult's thinking pattern, limiting their actions and reactions to the world as the adult sees it, not as it really is. The resulting inaccuracies in judgment Sullivan termed [[parataxic distortion]], when other persons are perceived or evaluated based on the patterns of previous experience, similar to Freud's notion of [[transference]]. Sullivan also introduced the concept of "prototaxic communication" as a more primitive, needy, infantile form of psychic interchange and "syntactic communication" as a mature style of emotional interaction.

Sullivan's work on interpersonal relationships became the foundation of [[interpersonal psychoanalysis]], a school of psychoanalytic theory and treatment that stresses detailed exploration of the nuances of patients' patterns of interacting with others.

Sullivan was the first to coin the term "problems in living" to describe the difficulties with self and others those with mental illnesses experience. This phrase was later picked up and popularized by [[Thomas Szasz]], whose work was a foundational resource for the [[Anti-psychiatry|antipsychiatry]] movement. "Problems in living" went on to become the movement's preferred way to refer to the manifestations of mental disturbances.

In 1927, he reviewed the controversial, anonymously published ''The Invert and his Social Adjustment'' and in 1929 called it "a remarkable document by a homosexual man of refinement; intended primarily as a guide to the unfortunate sufferers of sexual inversion, and much less open to criticism than anything else of the kind so far published."<ref>Vande Kemp, 15</ref>

He was one of the founders of the [[William Alanson White Institute]], considered by many the world's leading independent psychoanalytic institute, and of the journal ''Psychiatry'' in 1937. He headed the [[Washington, D.C., School of Psychiatry]] from 1936 to 1947.

In 1940, he and colleague [[Winfred Overholser]], serving on the [[American Psychiatric Association|American Psychiatric Society]]'s committee on Military Mobilization, formulated guidelines for the psychological screening of inductees to the U.S. military. He believed, writes one historian, "that sexuality played a minimal role in causing mental disorders and that adult homosexuals should be accepted and left alone."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wake |first=Naoko |title=[[Private practices: Harry Stack Sullivan, the science of homosexuality, and American liberalism]] |publisher=[[Rutgers University Press]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-0813549583 |location=United States}}</ref> Despite his best efforts, others included homosexuality as a disqualification for military service.<ref>Bérubé, pp. 9—11</ref>

Beginning on December 5, 1940, Sullivan served as psychiatric adviser to [[Selective Service]] director [[Clarence A. Dykstra]], but resigned in November 1941 after General [[Lewis Blaine Hershey|Lewis B. Hershey]], who was hostile to psychiatry, became the director.<ref>Vande Kemp, 16-7</ref> Sullivan then took part in establishing the [[Office of War Information]] in 1942.<ref>Perry, 168</ref>