If you have to maintain self-esteem by pulling down the standing of others, you are extraordinarily unfortunate.
Harry Stack SullivanIt may be possible through detachment, to gain knowledge that is 'useful;' but only through participation is it possible to gain the knowledge that is helpful.
Harry Stack SullivanWe are all much more simply human than otherwise, be we happy and successful, contented and detached, miserable and mentally disordered, or whatever.
Harry Stack Sullivan[O]ne of the greatest difficulties encountered in bringing about favorable change is this almost inescapable illusion that there is a perduring, unique, simple existent self, [which is] in some strange fashion, the patient's, or the subject person's, private property.
Harry Stack SullivanThe psychiatric interviewer is supposed to be doing three things: considering what the patient could mean by what he says; considering how he himself can best phrase what he wishes to communicate to the patient; and, at the same time, observing the general pattern of the events being communicated. In addition to that, to make notes which will be of more than evocative value, or come anywhere near being a verbatim record of what is said, in my opinion is beyond the capacity of most human beings.
Harry Stack Sullivan