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Kvarnes, M.D., Robert G. and Gloria H. Parloff (eds.), et al., A Harry Stack Sullivan Case Seminar: Treatment of a Young Male Schizophrenic. New York, Norton, 1976.
THIS IS AN EDITED, ALTHOUGH MAINLY verbatim, record of a five months psychotherapeutic treatment in a mental hospital of a twenty-five year old man suffering from a schizophrenic breakdown. The verbatim record was presented to Harry Stack Sullivan and the members of a case seminar which included both residents and staff members of Sheppard Pratt Hospital and Chestnut Lodge, as well as psychiatrists in private practice. Their discussions and those of Harry Stack Sullivan are faithfully presented, almost verbatim. In addition, tribute is paid to James I. Sullivan, a foster son, who helped make Sullivan's work possible by tending to the routine details of living. Comments by Kvarnes and three other faculty members of the Washington School of Psychiatry, a philosopher, a clinical psychologist, and a psychiatrist, who were not participants in the original seminar, follow each of the five seminar sessions. Kvarnes was the presenter in the original seminar. Adding to the interest is an afterword detailing the subsequent history of the patient until he died in 1975.
This is a unique contribution to our knowledge of Sullivan and how he thought about treatment and many other aspects of being human. Nothing of the sort has been published before.
While studying this volume, I remember being told that students studying Sullivan at the White Institute found it lacking as a teaching vehicle. Since I disagree, I wondered why?
It may be that Sullivan uses the case presentation as a vehicle to teach seminar members what he knows not only about schizophrenia, but also about obsessives, homosexuality, people in general, and the function and role of the psychotherapist. He does