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IN THE LATE 1920'S, PSYCHOANALYSTS began to concern themselves with character analysis, and a few years later some analysts became interested in the study of comparative cultures and in the application of the findings of modern anthropology to the study of the development of human personality. Fromm and Sullivan became outstanding contributors in both of these fields, and each has his own unique contribution to the subjects.
Fromm is a social psychologist, trained in the classical Freudian school of psychoanalysis, while Sullivan was a psychiatrist with a background in American psychiatry under William Alanson White and Adolf Meyer. Although well-versed in the theories and practices of psychoanalysis, Sullivan did not have direct contact with any of the European schools of analysis. About 1934, Sullivan and Fromm met for the first time, and for several years thereafter there was working collaboration between them at the Washington School of Psychiatry and the William Alanson White Institute. They held certain concepts in common, but each preserved his own particular approach to the problems. The work of each supplements the other, and their basic assumptions about human beings are similar. The chief area which they share in common is the interest in the impact of cultural pressures on personality development. The chief area of difference is in theories about the self.
Early in his career as a psychiatrist, Sullivan became interested in what goes on between people, especially in the areas of interaction, which seemed to create difficulties in living. This early interest, growing out of clinical observation, became further stimulated and its scope enlarged through his growing interest in the findings of cultural anthropology, especially as demonstrated in the work of Ruth Benedict and Edward Sapir.