Anxiety in Action: Sullivan's Interpersonal Psychiatry as a Supplement to Vygotskian Psychology

Psychiatric issues such as the formation of intimate bonds, personality, anxiety, and antisocial behavior tend to have little place in Vygotskian and neo-Vygotskian studies, giving the impression that all humans are competent and cooperative participants in social interaction. Nonetheless, Vygotsky himself was interested in psychiatric issues and contributed to psychiatric practice. Harry Stack Sullivan’s interpersonal psychiatry is compatible with and adds to socio-historical psychology an account of the origins and consequences of anxiety and the anxiety system. Sullivan provided a Vygotsky-like account of a person trying to grow into the social world he or she is born into and trying to satisfy needs with available people, themselves already socialized, enculturated, and formed as selves. Anthony B. Gabriele’s little-known practical elaborations of interpersonal psychiatry, further, are consistent with situated micro-analytical approaches to learning within social contexts.