ABSTRACT
New psychoanalytic theory coming out of Washington was based on the clinical approach begun by White. In New York, where classical psychoanalysis was strongest, the splits were even more intense. At the level of theory, it fell to Harry Stack Sullivan to achieve the most influential theoretical expression of the practice of the Washington school of psychoanalysis. His interpersonal psychoanalysis was the distinctive American contribution to the development of psychoanalytic theory. From Ludo Hartmann's background in psychology and sociology he recognized that psychoanalysis could never be a complete theory of human psychology unless it included an explanation for how human rational behaviour could arise out of a drive psychology. For a number of analysts who came to maturity in the 1960s in the US, ego psychology was a stop-gap measure, a bridge between drive theory and the relational theories of human psychology represented by the Washington School.
