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In his subtitle and introduction Marco Conci makes it very clear that his book about Sullivan, the American founder of the interpersonal school, is aimed not only at increasing the knowledge and recognition of Sullivan's contributions, but most of all at demonstrating Sullivan's timely relevance to psychiatry in general, and psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in particular. He will later point out how the value of Sullivan's work in the present day should be based on its totality rather than on any specific paper.
This interesting, albeit rather dense and at times circumstantial book is divided into two main sections. In the first Conci gives an extensive overview of the historical psychiatric context of the times in which and through which Sullivan developed his work. This is followed by an account of his chequered life and the development of his own theory within the context of other American neo-psychoanalysts such as Karen Horney, Erich Fromm and Clara Thompson. The second section is dedicated more specifically to the development of the interpersonal school, particularly in relation to schizophrenia, before reaching Sullivan's contributions as ‘the social scientist’. The last two chapters of this second section survey in more detail his work as a clinician, diagnostician and therapist which gave rise to the development of his renowned methodology—‘the psychiatric interview’—including its relevance for modern psychiatry, especially in today's interpersonal field. The book ends with a list of Sullivan's works, an extensive bibliography though, unfortunately, it lacks an index.
It is not easy to get into the book as the richness of the footnotes virtually equals the richness of the actual text. Even though the author points out (p. 22, footnote 36) that the reader can apparently proceed without the footnotes, in practice this is very difficult as one can frequently get waylaid at the expense of the main text and the fluidity of its reading. On the other hand, by not re