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SULLIVAN USED THIS TERM not only to describe the activity of a therapist, but also the activity of scientific observers, particularly those researchers in the social sciences of anthropology, social psychology and sociology.
As a therapist the term means that one participates in the patient-therapist communication on the basis of careful observation, not only of the patient, but also of the therapist's own reactions, and of the communications that go on between patient and therapist, verbal and non-verbal.
Participant refers to active responsiveness to and communication with the patient by the therapist. It also refers to observation as an active process on the therapist's part.
Observation means that one's therapeutic interventions are based not on a-priori theory, a procrustean bed into which observations are made to fit, but instead, on here and now observations of the relations of the patients' communications, one to another, of omissions in the patients' stories and memories; and of what is going on in the patient interaction. For example, when the therapist notices whenever he says something, that the patient's reaction is to say "no, that's not it" or the like, he can point this out to the patient. Or he may observe that a patient