The Uniquely Interpersonal and the Interpersonally Unique—On Interpersonal Psychoanalysis1

THERE IS A TOUCH OF IRONY in the title of this paper, for its two central terms, uniqueness and interpersonal, historically have formed an oxymoron. Sullivan, the seminal architect of Interpersonal theory, maintained that the study of uniqueness had no place within Interpersonal science; for him, therapeutic Interpersonal inquiry and the study of unique individuality were mutually exclusive. Yet, today, some fifty or more years after Sullivan's first statements of his Interpersonal conceptions, it is germane to consider what is unique about Interpersonal psychoanalysis itself.

This irony both encodes and reveals a fundamental feature of Interpersonal psychoanalysis—its creative acceptance of pluralism and its ability to innovate or transform itself; to take in new ideas, even those expressly excluded by its founder. In this paper, I will discuss the two concepts, uniqueness and interpersonal, in two different ways: first, in an examination of the uniquely interpersonal —what, in my opinion, uniquely defines or distinguishes Interpersonal psychoanalysis; and then, second, in a brief look at the interpersonally unique —a set of analytic attitudes that I think are essential to the facilitation of analytic aliveness and creativity, and which I call openness to singularity, or uniqueness, if you will.

I would like to frame my discussion of the uniquely interpersonal