Herbert (Harry) Stack Sullivan

Herbert (Harry) Stack Sullivan (1892-1949), an American Neo-Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who posited that the personality lives and a person's 'being' exists in a complex network of interpersonal relations. This belief is presumed to be based upon his personal experiences of growing up as the son of Irish Catholic immigrants in a rabidly anti-Catholic enclave of Norwich, NY. A student of the Freudian school of psychoanalysis he later laid the groundwork for understanding the individual based on interpersonal relationships where cultural influences affect mental health. Through his work he also labeled loneliness as one of the most intense and painful of human experiences. His research extended Freudian psychoanalysis through to the treatment of major mental illnesses, including schizophrenia.