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SULLIVAN'S IDEAS concerning the concepts individual and individuality are always controversial. These ideas are central to his psychoanalytic theory of interpersonal relations. To reject these concepts is to reject his theory. It is essential, therefore, to be clear as to what Sullivan said and meant when he discussed individuality in terms of the often quoted and much misunderstood phrases, the "delusion of unique individuality" and the "illusion of personal individuality."
An early statement on this subject appears in a paper published in the American Journal of Sociology entitled "A Note. on the Implications of Psychiatry, the Study of Interpersonal Relations, for Investigation in the Social Sciences, " (1936–37). In it he specifically contrasts two types of unique individuality as follows:
The skill of the investigator resides not in achieving some fancied aloofness, but in being free from serious inhibitions of his awareness as to the stream of events which involve him. The most general category of these inhibitions of awareness is the overweening conviction of