Commentary on "Conceptions of modern psychiatry": from attachment to intersubjectivity

I am honored and humbled by the invitation to comment on the wisdom of a true giant in the history of psychiatry, Harry Stack Sullivan. Resonating with the prescience of his thought as any contemporary reader would, I am astonished by its pertinence to current concerns. Four domains of resonance strike me: the role of neurobiology in psychiatry, the social origins of mind in attachment relationships, the contribution of self-hate to suicide and, perhaps most important for clinicians, the intersubjective process of diagnostic understanding and treatment. As an expression of admiration for the timelessness of Sullivan's essay and appreciation for all we have learned from him, my comments merely explicate how some of his thoughts are playing out in contemporary theory and research.