Developmental Epochs

At a time when Freudian psychoanalytic theory dominated psychiatry, Harry Stack Sullivan drew on his experiences working with the severely mentally ill to develop an alternative approach to understanding development, the etiology of psychopathology, and effective psychotherapeutic treatments. Observing his patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, Sullivan concluded that those with psychosis were acutely sensitive to the interpersonal environment and that many of the psychotic experiences of his patients heavily influenced their interpersonal interactions. Out of these observations emerged an examination of the interpersonal issues particular to each phase of the lifespan and the notion that early relationships are central to the development of personality. Essentially, Sullivan pioneered a field of psychiatry that challenged the understanding of a human as a single unit and conceptualized human development as inseparable from the interpersonal environment (Mitchell and Black 1995).

Sulliv...