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TWO RECENT WORKS HAVE SOUGHT to clarify the distinction between the intrapsychic and the interpersonal approaches to psychoanalysis. Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) see each approach as embodying a major tradition in Western philosophy. The intrapsychic model embraces as its fundamental premise the notion that the individual mind is the most meaningful unit of study. The interpersonal model begins from the idea that human beings are essentially social.
Levenson (1983) has drawn this distinction in terms of each model's approach to reality. The European-based intrapsychic model conceives of reality as a springboard for an autonomous, internally driven fantasy process. The interpersonal model, as conceived by Sullivan (1953), views the patient as disabled by an uncomprehended reality, not by an anachronistic fantasy system. That is, the interpersonal analyst of the "American pragmatic psychoanalytic movement" (Levenson, 1983, p. 11) is interested in the difficulties a person has in realizing a meaningful reality, in the sense of what Levenson describes as a "semiotic competence." This is in contrast to the interpersonal analyst who uses an intrapsychic model, and locates the meaning gap between an internally driven fantasy and an external reality.
In making this distinction, Levenson stresses that an interpersonal approach can embrace either view. That is; if one adopts the interpersonal perspective of an object-relations model of psychoanalysis—as is done by W. R. D. Fairbairn (1952), and D. W. Winnicott (1958) —one sees the patient as disabled by an anachronistic fantasy system. If, however, one adopts a pragmatic-interpersonal