PARTISAN REVIEW
subtle and difficult to detect-which drives us to protect ourselves,
to develop anxiety and dissociations, to form perhaps a low opinion
of ourselves and to show unnecessary malice to others. The self,
anxious to grow and communicate, tries to avoid the derogation it
meets, to throw it out of consciousness or ignore it; but if the hatred
and belittlement were persistent and came from a significant other,
it can be taken over and become part of the "I-me" relation. Thwarted
in
this way, the self still tries to grow by dissociating the derogated
part of the personality, by fighting back at the author of the deroga–
tion however it can, or by substituting--developing prestige in a
free area to offset the stunted part. The derogation inflicted upon us
in childhood may be later forgotten, but if it is severe and unre–
solved it will remain in parataxes, dissociations, low self-esteem, and
malice. The analyst must use every means to discover precisely how
the personality was originally derogated to develop this specific "lan–
guage" in reply. (This is actually extremely difficult, since severe
anxiety is aroused in the process.)
Sullivan has noted, without explanation, that the self which is
derogated also derogates others. I think it can be said that there is
here a carry-over by which others continue to be viewed as the agents
of frustration. Anxiety and dissociations with their attendant physical
symptoms are partly inner movements of conflict between judgments
a self feels impelled to impose on itself but which it rebels against
because they are not its own. The operations of power are inevitably
mysterious. We continue to subject ourselves to derogation because
we do not know
how
it has operated, because of the subtlety or the
remoteness in experience, or on account of the veil of love and ten–
derness that is thrown over so many human power drives and hates.
Ill
Already it can be seen that a study of interpersonal contexts is
highly complex and that, viewed in the generality, the character of
human relations is almost infinitely various. While this ·makes the
formulation of concepts difficult, it is the basic strength of Sullivan's
approach. Sullivan is best when he is describing detailed and specific
analyses; he is less enlightening when he tries to classify the basic
trends of his observations into "syndromes." Precisely what is impor-
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