Posted by Sigismund on August 26, 2008, at 1:17:46
In reply to Sigismund - Harry Stack Sullivan, posted by Quintal on August 22, 2008, at 16:22:19
Harry Stack Sullivan's Contribution to Clinical Method
Leston L. Havens, M.D.
FROM AMONG SULLIVAN'S MOST IMPORTANT contributions, I want to discuss what seems to me most innovative in his working methods. First, by way of background:
1. Perhaps his fundamental observation was of transference: this did not only develop, he claimed; it was present and ubiquitous from the start. In the language of the English analytic school, introjects and projects are the building blocks of personality and social relations; or as I prefer to say, there are always "other people in the room".
2. These transferences or parataxes are based on experience. Society, not anatomy, is destiny.
3. In dealing with transferences there is no single, detached position from which interventions can be made; the observer is always a participant, reinforcing some projections, diminishing others. Therefore technical activity and flexibility are necessities.
Of course many workers have suggested active and flexible technical measures, perhaps most notably Ferenczi.
poster:Sigismund
thread:847724
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080810/msgs/848345.html