ABSTRACT
Sullivan’s notion of “personification” implies that the way a person relates to other people is a reflection of how “people” are represented mentally, how the “self” is represented mentally, and at what developmental level the concept of “relationship” is represented mentally. Further, and perhaps more important, it is the maturational level of the patient’s representational world which determines the degree to which Sullivan’s concept of consensual validation is possible as a therapeutic process, and thereby shapes one’s analytic approach to any given patient. It is, in other words, the bridge which links developmental theory to the interpersonal method of participant observation.
