ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some of that evidence from first-hand accounts of people who encountered Harry Stack Sullivan. It looks at some of his writings about lust and sexuality that have been relatively ignored, to show how he was working toward a radical new formulation of sexuality's place in human living. He was gay, and that led to his being a champion of gay rights. Even more importantly to interpersonalists, his homosexuality was integral to his clinical and theoretical innovations. He was famously skillful at making a connection with very cut-off patients; it was said that when he spoke with schizophrenics, they no longer sounded schizophrenic. He also developed milieu therapy; every aspect of living in the ward was carefully thought out to lessen the patients' anxiety and help them find new pathways to secure living. His homosexuality was also integral to his theory of interpersonal psychiatry.
