ABSTRACT
Though the relatively new psychoanalytic designation called 'Relational' covers a wider range of thinking than the much older term 'Interpersonal', the two traditions overlap considerably. Despite some Relational thought that is, indeed, quite incompatible with the Interpersonal, much of what is identified as Relational is distinctly in harmony with Interpersonal theorizing. Harry Stack Sullivan's contributions in the 1940s and 1950s, in my mind, are the bedrock for the broader and more contemporary Relational thinking. Sullivan's was the first psychoanalytic theory in this country to place human relationships and their internalization at the center of understanding development. This pure Interpersonal theory of development reflected a major alternative to the then dominant drive-discharge theory of Classical psychoanalysis. Though this developmental theory lacked the specificity and the sophistication of current infant research and attachment theory research, its spirit is in much harmony. Clara Thompson, Sullivan's closest colleague, indeed set the early tone for much of what has become feminist writing in psychoanalysis.
