third year abnormal psy asignments

SULLIVAN’S INTERPERSONAL THEORY:
Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949), is a well known interpersonal theorist and an American Psychiatrist. Sullivan offered a comprehensive and systematic theory of personality that was explicitly interpersonal. He maintained that the concept of personality had meaning only when defined in terms of a person’s characteristic ways of relating to others. He argued that personality development proceeded through various stages involving different patterns of interpersonal relationships.
For example, early in development a child becomes socialized mainly through interactions with parents and somewhat later peer relationships become increasingly important. In young adulthood, intimate relationships are established, culminating typically in marriage. Failure to progress satisfactorily through these various stages paves the way for maladaptive behavior.
Sullivan was concerned with the anxiety – arousing aspects of interpersonal relationships during early childhood (rather Freud’s emphasis on anxiety a being a signal of unconscious conflict.) Because an infant is completely dependant on parents and siblings for meeting all needs, a lack of love and care leads to insecurity and what can be an overwhelming sense of anxiety. He defined security as a freedom from anxiety. He also believed that anxiety is fundamental to much psychopathology. His emphasis on anxiety to psychopathology. His emphasis on psychopathology was even greater than Freud’s. Sullivan also emphasized the role of early childhood relationships in shaping the self-concept. For example, if a little girl perceives that others are rejecting her, she may view herself in a similar light and develop a negative self-image that almost inevitably leads to maladjustment.

INTERPERSONAL ACCOMODATION AND ATTACHMENT:-
It is a process through which two people develop pattern of communication and interaction that enable them to attain common goals, meet mutual needs, and builds a satisfying relationship. People use many cues, both verbal and nonverbal; to interpret what is really being said to them. When communication and interpersonal communication fail and a relationship do not meet the needs of one or both partners, it is likely to be characterized by conflict, dissension and eventually dissolution.
Bowlby’s attachment theory has its roots in the interpersonal and object relations perspective. This theory has become enormously influential in the study of child psychology and child psychiatry and adult psychopathology.
Drawing on Freud and others from these perspectives, Bowlby’s theory emphasizes the importance of early experience, especially early experience with attachment relationships, as laying the foundation for later functioning throughout childhood, adolescent and adulthood. He emphasized the importance of the quality of parental care to the development of secure attachments, but also saw the infants a playing a more active role in shaping the course of their own development that had most the earlier theorists.