Emotional reality in Freud and Sullivan: Discussion of Dr. Sandra Buechler's paper

This discussion explores and compares the explicit interpersonal method of psychoanalysis of Harry Stack Sullivan and the implicit and until now insufficiently recognized interpersonal method of Sigmund Freud. Interpersonal means interaction via expression of feelings, emotions, and actions, gestures of body and face, and words. The centrality of emotions as motives and movers or action suggests redefining psychic reality as emotional reality. While Freud did not have the word “interpersonal,” invented by Sullivan, he nevertheless acted as an interpersonal psychotherapist both in his prepsychoanalytic period and, thereafter, from his beginnings as a psychoanalyst in 1893. The other purpose of this paper is to promote a new era of collaboration and cross-fertilization between the IPA and other psychoanalytic authors and organizations.