ABSTRACT
This last chapter on Sullivan’s interpersonal theory of psychiatry will focus on his remaining epochs of development-the period including childhood through late adolescence and adult maturity. As we move away from the more specific interactions between the infant and the mothering one, we shall see how Sullivan cast his developmental epochs as times of changing patterns of socialization and of learning increasingly complex patterns of interpersonal cooperation. Naturally, the developing person will also modify or change his or her personifications of self and others, the internal representations of the interpersonal world. As Carson (1982) pointed out, Sullivan’s concept of personification suggested that these representations of self and other will begin to take the form of several internal “generalized others” (not all of whom will be the source of difficulty) with reciprocal complementary “selves,” a concept which has received considerable empirical support (Gergen 1971). As compared to other psychoanalytic theories, Sullivan’s concept of the epochs of development emphasized the relative plasticity in personality development, during which current interpersonal circumstances became important influences, as well as the past. Balancing his more skeptical view of the conservative tendency of the self-system, i.e. maintaining, no matter how problematic, the prevailing self and other representations and resulting interpersonal dynamisms, Sullivan stressed the importance of how the processes of learning increasingly more effective patterns of
interpersonal cooperation influenced personality development. Sullivan saw developmental epochs as more or less culturally determined age periods where important interpersonal tasks were mastered more or less well. With the possible exception of the effects of massively anxiety-ridden interpersonal relations in infancy, he did not believe in the concept of critical periods of development in which certain maturation must be met by a certain age or an immutable distorting influence would ensue. As noted by Kagan (1984), intercultural research on critical periods in human child development largely has not held up the concept of specific age-related developmental periods, but instead has indicated a greater influence of developmental task learning on personality development. Presaging competency-based theories of human motivation like those of Robert White (1959) and David McClelland (1961), Sullivan strongly believed that the human animal found learning and mastery to be innately rewarding. Like John Dewey’s (1922, 1929) pragmatic and optimistic social theory, Sullivan’s developmental theory subtly expressed an underlying belief in the possibility of personality change in even highly damaged individuals, given the intervention of fortunate interpersonal circumstances.
