PARTISAN REVIEW
actions into consciousness but not others. Sullivan posits a social
definition of this self in the manner of George Herbert Mead; it is
an "I-me" relation whose self-awareness depends upon its communi–
cation with others, its action with and responses to the specific, de–
tailed, unique persons who have been significant to it. The self is the
conscious "I" part of the total personality with a security system for
its protection and anxiety as its boundary.
The security system .and, hence, the nature of the self is formed
by the specific order of derogation and encouragement the person
has received in his conditioning. The self-dynamism works continually
to unify the self, to ward off and avoid what derogation it can, to
avoid anxiety and to grow and express itself in a complex of human
factors which are not always encouraging.
If
it becomes necessary
to perform an action that conflicts with the security system the result
will be anxiety and the action together with its purpose may be com–
pletely cast out of awareness or
dissociated
from the self.
The husband who meets his wife's derogatory remark first with
anxiety, then with headaches, and who may then use the headache in
any number of subtle ways to discomfit her, and may rationalize it
as a hangover, is a simple example of a type of self in operation. That
his wife's remark was aimed at his taste in novels, a sensitive area,
and that a headache was the result instead of a defense of
his
enthu–
siasm, a reference to her fondness for Dashiell Hammett, a show of
contempt or a loud sputter, are matters that can only be uncovered
by a reference to the past. Again, that the husband will insist his wife
is an angel who adores him and all his tastes, only further compli–
cates our comparatively simple example. In this instance, we see that
a taste in novels is in none of its ramifications an objective affair,
but is, on the contrary, a highly subjective and interpersonal issue.
The mode of behavior in present situations is, then, largely
determined not by the demand and the peculiar nature of these others
now acting, but by past experience in altogether different contexts.
To account for this continuing discrepancy between present and past,
Sullivan developed one of his key concepts-that of
parataxis.
This
term literally means side-by-side as opposed to the logical flow implied
in
the word "syntax." The description was first applied when the
analyst saw two distinct me-you relations developing between a
patient and himself; the first of these was, of course, the existing situa-
1072
