Harry Stack Sullivan and Anton T. Boisen: Comrades and Revolutionaries in Psychotherapy by Raymond J. Lawrence

Click Here to Read:  Review of Raymond J. Lawrence’s Book: Harry Stack Sullivan and Anton T. Boisen Comrades and Revolutionaries in Psychotherapy by Charla Hayden on the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy website.

“Raymond Lawrence’s remarkable book unearths for us the heretofore unexplored relationship between Anton Boisen, the founder of the pastoral psychotherapy movement, and Harry Stack Sullivan, the founder of modern interpersonal theory. Lawrence shares with us their improbable relationship, their considerable influence had on their professions, and why they have been forgotten. More than just a history, Raymond Lawrence’s writing enlivens these men and shares critical insights they had about the human conditions. I loved the blending of the secular worlds of Freud and Sullivan with Boisen’s religious and spiritual approach, an all-too-uncommon failing in modern psychodynamic theory.”
–Dr. F. Barton Evans III, author of Harry Stack Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory and Psychotherapy

“This book is firmly grounded in both the practical and the spiritual necessities for recovery and growth. I highly recommend it.”
–Joanne Greenberg, author of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

“Dr. Raymond Lawrence meticulously depicts the way in which the lives of Dr. Harry Stack Sullivan and Rev. Anton T. Boisen converged as they both deemed psychotherapy as essential in the “cure of souls” in their respective vocations of medicine and religion.”
–Kimberley A. Turner, Ph.D., M.Div.

Harry Stack Sullivan radically upended psychotherapy, not in any way derogatory to its creator, Sigmund Freud, but simply by making what Freud created even more radically humanistic… And the quarter-century collegial relationship between Sullivan and Anton Boisen meant that great numbers of religious leaders would have open access to both Freud and Sullivan by way of Boisen’s Clinical Pastoral Training regimens.”
–Raymond J. Lawrence

Raymond J. Lawrence, with Perry N. Miller, was the founder of the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy (CPSP) in 1990. The mission of CPSP has been the integration of Freudian and Sullivanian theory and practice into the work of religious and pastoral leaders and lay persons. Contact: raymondlawrence.com • Raymondlawrence@gmail.com