{{Short description|Psychological method}} {{Psychoanalysis |Schools}} '''Interpersonal psychoanalysis''' is based on the theories of American psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan (1892–1949). Sullivan believed that the details of a patient's interpersonal interactions with others can provide insight into the causes and cures of mental disorder.<ref>Sullivan, H. S. (1953). [https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0393001385 ''The interpersonal theory of psychiatry.''] New York: Norton.</ref><ref>Evans, F. Barton (1996). [https://books.google.com/books?id=9_GUnVqJYYoC&pg=PA53 ''Harry Stack Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory and Psychotherapy.''] London: Routledge.</ref>

Current practitioners stress such features as the detailed description of clinical experience, the mutuality of the interpersonal process, and the not-knowing of the analyst.<ref>Arthur H. Feiner, ''Interpersonal Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Relevance'' (2000) p. 22-6 and p. 44</ref>

==Sullivan and the neo-Freudians==

Along with other neo-Freudian practitioners of interpersonal psychoanalysis, such as Horney, Fromm, Thompson and Fromm-Reichman, Sullivan repudiated Freudian drive theory.<ref>Paul Brinich/Christopher Shelley, ''The Self and Personality Structure'' (Buckingham 2002) p. 65</ref>

They, like Sullivan, also shared the interdisciplinary emphasis that was to be an important part of the legacy of interpersonal psychoanalysis, influencing counsellors, clergymen, social workers and more.<ref>Brinich, ''Self'' p. 64</ref>

==Selective inattention==

Sullivan proposed that patients could keep certain aspects or components of their interpersonal relationships out of their awareness by a psychological behavior described as selective inattention - a term that has to a degree passed into common usage.

A defence mechanism that functions prior to psychological repression, and acts by way of blocking all notice of the threat in question, selective inattention can also be accompanied by selective non-participation.<ref>A. & J. Rosen, ''Frozen Dreams'' (2005) p. 108 and 115</ref>

Both defences as used by patients may be usefully identified by the analyst through examination of his/her countertransference.<ref>Rosen, p. 104</ref>

==Personifications==

Sullivan emphasized that psychotherapists' analyses should focus on patients' relationships and personal interactions in order to obtain knowledge of what he called personifications – one's internalised views of self and others, one's internal schemata.<ref>Paul Brinich/Christopher Shelley, ''The Self and Personality Structure'' (Buckingham 2002) p. 65</ref>

Such analyses would consist of detailed questioning regarding moment-to-moment personal interactions, even including those with the analyst himself.

Personifications can form the basis for what Sullivan called parataxic distortions of the interpersonal field – distortions similar to those described as the products of transference and projective identification in orthodox psychoanalysis.<ref>Brinich, ''Self'' p. 65</ref> As with the latter, parataxic distortion can, if identified by the analyst, prove fruitful clues to the nature of the patient's inner world.<ref>S. R. Welt/W. G. Herron, ''Narcissism and the Psychotherapist'' (1990) p.&nbsp;121-2</ref>

==Criticism== {{See also|Psychoanalysis#Criticism|Psychotherapy#General critiques}} Sullivan has been criticised for inventing (sometimes opaque) neologisms for established psychoanalytic concepts, to claim a perhaps spurious intellectual independence.<ref>B. F. Evans, in Brinich, ''Self'' p. 65</ref>

==See also== {{Columns-list|colwidth=22em| *Elephant in the room *Interpersonal psychotherapy *Intersubjective psychoanalysis *Family therapy *Relational psychoanalysis *Relationship counseling *Transactional analysis }}

==References== {{reflist|2|}}

==Further reading== * Curtis, R. C. & Hirsch, I. (2003). Relational Approaches to Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. In Gurman, A. G. & Messer, S. B. Essential Psychotherapies. NY: Guilford. * Curtis, R. C. (2008). Desire, Self, Mind & the Psychotherapies. Unifying Psychological Science and Psychoanalysis. Lanham, MD & New York: Jason Aronson. * D. B. Stern/C. H. Mann eds., ''Pioneers of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis'' (1995)

Category:Psychoanalytic schools