INTERPERSONAL THEORY by Harry Stack Sullivan

Infancy begins at birth and continues until a child develops articulate or syntaxic
speech, usually at about age 18 to 24 months. Sullivan believed that an infant becomes
human through tenderness received from the mothering one. In the patients case, he may
have received enough tenderness when he was a child but as the demands of his parents work
increased over time, he was kept mostly under the care of their family helpers.
During childhood, emotions become reciprocal; a child is able to give tenderness as
well as receive it. The relationship between mother and child becomes more personal and less
one-sided. Rather than seeing the mother as good or bad based on how she satisfied hunger
needs, the child evaluates the mother syntaxically according to whether she shows reciprocal
tender feelings, develops a relationship based on the mutual satisfaction of needs, or exhibits
a rejecting attitude. Parents are viewed as source of praise and acceptance.
The juvenile era . The juvenile era appears upon the maturation of the need for
compeers. According to Sullivan, it is the time for becoming social. He seeks to satisfy his
need for intimacy from the peers or playmates. During the juvenile era, one begins to acquire
supervisory patterns of the self, which pertain not only to moral conduct but to behavior
generally. These supervisory patterns, developed in connection with authoritative figures in
the home, school, and church, tend to make the juvenile more self-critical. Normally, there is
a considerable elaboration of the self. The youngster learns patterns of cooperation,
competition, and compromise.
In the clients family, he has not received much support from his parent. He was most
of the time, left to the care of their housemaid. He perceived his parents as uninvolved, his
father as lazy and his mother as indifferent. As a child, the client was not close to his eldest
sibling because as verbalized by the client "hindi ko siya mabiro, hindi ko masyadong
nakakausap kasi ang layo ng age gap". He also had an issue with his little sister and said that
they had grew apart. As a child wanting approval and socialization, he was not able to fulfil
those needs because of the dysfunctional family dynamics. He also wasnt able to develop his
connection with his authoritative figures since the parents, especially the father figure, were
uninvolved in his affairs. With that, client has become self-critical and when he had
encountered Ang Dating Daan, felt a strong affinity to the religion and insisted that the
family should join him in his belief which resulted to a family conflict and aggression in the
part of the patient.
Preadolescence, which begins at age 81 /2 and ends with adolescence, is a time for
intimacy with one particular person, usually a person of the same gender. All preceding stages
have been egocentric, with friendships being formed on the basis of selfinterest. A
preadolescent, for the first time, takes a genuine interest in the other person.
Early adolescence begins with puberty and ends with the need for sexual love with
one person. It is marked by the eruption of genital interest and the advent of lustful
relationships.

Patient has not yet been in a romantic relationship but said that he had his heart
broken by a girl once. The lady was not named but the patient said that they were having a
mutual understanding and that the lady really likes him. But then, the lady introduced her
boyfriend to the client. The client was devastated and felt that what happened was worse than
being rejected outright.