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FROM AMONG SULLIVAN'S MOST IMPORTANT contributions, I want to discuss what seems to me most innovative in his working methods. First, by way of background:
1Perhaps his fundamental observation was of transference: this did not only develop, he claimed; it was present and ubiquitous from the start. In the language of the English analytic school, introjects and projects are the building blocks of personality and social relations; or as I prefer to say, there are always "other people in the room".
2These transferences or parataxes are based on experience. Society, not anatomy, is destiny.
3In dealing with transferences there is no single, detached position from which interventions can be made; the observer is always a participant, reinforcing some projections, diminishing others. Therefore technical activity and flexibility are necessities.
Of course many workers have suggested active and flexible technical measures, perhaps most notably Ferenczi. In our own time, Kernberg has tried to match the difficulties of some transferences with heightened interpretative activity. Kohut has responded with a heightened empathy. Vestiges of Ferenczi's and particularly Alexander's influence continue in the several recommendations for increased manipulations in therapy. We can