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To the Editor:
DR. IRENA KLENBORT'S PENETRATING paper, "Another Look at Sullivan's Concept of Individuality (This Journal, Volume 14, 1), is the latest in a series of efforts aimed at balancing out what has been regarded as the social adaptational bias in Interpersonal Theory—a bias which is out of place today, the "Age of the Self." It has been stated by Dr. Klenbort, and in some of the responding discussions by Drs. Crowley, Davis, Lefer and Lionells, that Sullivan was trying to ameliorate man's post-depression era and present technologically induced sense of isolation and insecurity. He therefore did not place his emphasis on man's uniqueness and originality, with their attendant dangers of grandiosity and alienation. In addition to this socio-economic reading of Sullivan's position, it should be noted (Davis touches on it) that Sullivan's position left scant room for the direct study of the unique, since what is unique cannot be operationally replicated. Yet, as Klenbort points out, why was it then that Sullivan was so attentive to the highly individualized in his clinical work, in addition to being such a unique person himself, while inveighing against what he considered to be that illusion of personal uniqueness in Interpersonal-Theory? It only adds to the mystery to note the numbers of analysts trained in his conceptions who went on to champion the importance of articulating the patient's uniqueness, in practice and theory.
In attempting to resolve this paradox, Dr. Klenbort and her respondents take a number of positions ranging from either the unique or the commonly connected, splitting the two, relegating one to practice and the other to theory, and the disclaiming of the existence of such a paradox to begin with. I believe, however, that