ABSTRACT

Sullivan's clinical material clearly suggests the same awareness of the function of language. A superficial perusal would lead one to believe that he was using a communication paradigm. But it is not entirely so. Let me repeat (since it is an extremely elusive distinction, from the semiotic view): if the child loses the grasp of his world, if something is going on which he does not understand, conflicting or incoherent messages are received, and anxiety results. * The anxiety, from this perspective, is the alarm system. It does not motivate, but is the consequence of, mystification. At the root is a real confusion. On the other hand, if one sees the child as in an incipient state of anxiety because this imbalance is his biological nature (a dependency on empathic reassurance) then a breakdown in semiotic control permits the monster in the center to rush forward and consume the child. The anxiety is an energic force, always present, under restraint, and ready to break through defenses. Distortion is the result of untrammeled anxiety. It is wrong and must be corrected: it is not, as in a communicational mode, a distorted message with a real referent. To paraphrase

Chrzanowski, anxiety is, for Sullivan, the fire-not, as for Freud, the fire alarm. IS

It is clear that, for Sullivan, mental disorder results from inadequate interpersonal communication, the communication process being interfered with by anxiety. 19 The self-system is itself "an organization of educative experience called into being by the necessity to avoid or to minimize incidents of anxiety."2o In the beginning, for Sullivan, is not the Word, but inchoate anxiety. Language ameliorates anxiety by giving interpersonal potency, and the self develops as the instrument of social security and competence. The social self does not develop because the potential is there for an emergent social self, but to avoid anxiety. It is a view of humanness as a defense against terror. If there were no cave bears, no saber-toothed tigers, would man not have discovered fire?