Kenneth L. Chatelaine

"I probably shall not return, but remember this and do not forget it. I shall
be controversial. There was no way to avoid it." ( Sullivan's last words to
his foster son, James Inscoe Sullivan, on January 2, 1949)

Harry Stack Sullivan made major contributions to the history of
personality theory. He outlined an interpersonal approach to personal-
ity, the idea that an individual's concept of selfhood is a reflection of
others' attitudes toward that person. Influenced by the social psy-
chology of George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley, Sullivan under-
stood a person's ego-concept to be the result of what is mirrored back to
that person by mother, family, and social surroundings.

Contemporary American theories of personality find their origins in
the work of Sullivan. For example, Sullivan's personality theory served
as a precursor to the work of Carl Rogers. The idea of the "phenomenal
self" in Rogers's thinking was anticipated in the work of Sullivan, and
Rogers built his theory on the Sullivanian idea that the self-concept is a
sociological product. Sullivan's theory also was a forerunner to the
developmental personality theory of Erik Erikson. According to Sulli-
van, every individual traverses seven stages of development during life:
(1) infancy, (2) childhood, (3) the juvenile period, (4) preadolescence, (5)
adolescence, (6) late adolescence, and (7) adulthood. Although Erikson
used a somewhat different classification of psychological stages, he was

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