PARTISAN REVIEW
speech is meaningful because at basis it
aims
at satisfactions; the
schizophrenic does not seek satisfactions because he is absolutely con–
vinced that there are none.*
Sometimes the schizophrenic, especially the more active type,
hits upon a paranoid systematization. Once this occurs, and the
whole of the distress is viewed as a conspiracy of others, the patient
changes his activity from perplexed anxiety and defense into one of
suppressing all doubt-provoking instances which might interfere with
the plausibility of his "explanation." The paranoid systematization
relieves the patient of a tremendous weight of derogatory judgment
and is so markedly beneficial to his peace of mind that it is seldom
relinquished.
If
the paranoid systematization does not set in, the
schizophrenic passes from bewildered catatonia into hebephrenic
dilapidation.
IV
Sullivan's system presents itself, thus, as a remarkable body of
knowledge that far transcends its behavioral basis·** and is rich in
suggestions of both psychological and philosophical importance. Its
chief merit is its consideration of human beings in the fullness of
their cultural detail; his theories do not reduce and they do not rest
on bland assumptions of original instincts or an imaginary anthro–
pology-we cannot know our origins and perhaps it would make
little difference if we could. His theories also stress the value of the
communication of ourselves and of understanding the unique natures
of those who surround us. Sullivan himself seems unaware of either
the philosophic importance or the true nature of this communication,
tending to assume that an integration into a liberal America is the
*
See
Language and Schizophrenia,
(
1947). Sullivan's unfortunately brief
contribution to this symposium seems to indicate that the "concrete" nature of
schizophrenic thinking is not due to an inability to form abstractions, as in Gelb,
Goldstein, and Kasanin's theory, but to the breaking of the communicative con–
text in which abstractions are "safe" and useful.
**
Sullivan correctly points to the "objective," observable nature of his con–
cepts as distinguishing them from earlier psychoanalytic theory. But aside from
the difficulty of any direct behavioral placement of such notions as parataxic
or "eidetic" persons persisting in the self-system, it is to be noted that the
distinctive feature of Sullivan's insistence upon behavior is, or has come to be,
not its observable nature, but the
order
of fact it brings up--the interpersonal
character of the self.
1076
