0.3 Alfred adler and harry stack sullivan  (Page 26/37)

Two family members helped Sullivan with his education during his school years. His mother’s sister Margaret, a schoolteacher, brought him many books and introduced him to a wide range of intellectual ideas. His father’s brother, Will, was a respected lawyer and then a judge who was influential in applying psychological issues to the law. He helped to foster Sullivan’s interest in human problems. This aunt and uncle both later helped Sullivan with college finances, and they helped him to win a prestigious New York State Regents’ Scholarship to Cornell University. However, Sullivan was not prepared for college. After a fair start, his grades dropped drastically. He became involved with a group of boys who were illegally obtaining and selling chemicals. Only Sullivan was caught, and he was convicted of mail fraud. His whereabouts for the next 2 years are unknown. He may have been in jail, but there is evidence to suggest that he was hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital following a psychotic break. Later in life he was friends with the renowned A. A. Brill (the psychiatrist who first translated many of Freud’s books into English), and Brill was working at Bellevue at the time. Sullivan was also friends later in life with another employee who worked at Bellevue at that time, and no simple explanation can be given for his friendship with two men who worked at Bellevue Hospital during the time Sullivan’s whereabouts are unknown (Alexander, 1990; Evans, 1996; Perry, 1982).

In 1911, Sullivan reappeared and entered the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery. He finished his coursework in 1915, but did not receive a degree, possibly due to owing the school money. He worked briefly as an industrial surgeon in a steel mill, and in 1916 joined the Illinois National Guard. After only 5 months he was released on medical grounds, supposedly due to a broken jaw. He then disappeared for a while, later claiming that he received 75 hours of psychoanalysis during the disappearance. But where that occurred, or with whom, is again unknown. In 1917, he was finally awarded his medical degree, and he joined the U. S. Army. His application contained many inaccuracies and falsifications, including lying about his age. Nonetheless, he was commissioned as a lieutenant, promoted to captain at the end of World War I, and spent 2 years moving between Chicago and Washington, DC. In 1920, he left the Army, and again a year of his life seems to be missing. In November, 1921, he joined St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, DC, and began his career in psychiatry (Alexander, 1990; Evans, 1996; Perry, 1982).

St. Elizabeth’s Hospital was one of best psychiatric hospitals of the time (and remains so today), under the leadership of the renowned William Alanson White, a pioneer in applying dynamic psychotherapy to psychotic patients. After a year, however, there was no permanent position for Sullivan. So, he applied for a position at the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Baltimore (as prestigious as St. Elizabeth’s both then and now). White’s letter of recommendation for Sullivan was lukewarm and vague. He described Sullivan as “better equipped than the average State Hospital assistant,” but he also acknowledged that he didn’t really know Sullivan because of Sullivan’s personal distance from other people (Alexander, 1990). Nonetheless, Sullivan was hired for his first clinical psychiatric position at Sheppard Pratt (as it is more commonly known - Note: The author’s wife had the privilege of working at Sheppard Pratt early in her career), and he began an exciting and innovative period of eight years, during which he did the most important clinical work of his career, including innovative techniques for the treatment of schizophrenia in young patients (Alexander, 1990; Evans, 1996; Perry, 1982). Today, the Sheppard Pratt Health System includes the Harry Stack Sullivan Day Hospital, a partial hospitalization program assisting adults with severe mental illness, including psychotic disorders.