March 5, 1999

I am responding to the History Notes article in the January 1 issue titled "William Alanson White, M.D.-A Distinguished Achiever." While I was delighted to see the article, I think its author missed a major point.

Dr. White was indeed a distinguished achiever. His major contribution, however, was the impact of people like Harry Stack Sullivan, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, and others he supported on American psychoanalysis and psychiatry. For example, the ideas we have today and take for granted on participant observation by the psychiatrist in the therapeutic process came out of the work of Sullivan and his followers. The importance of interpersonal process, of history taking in psychiatry, and of not assuming that we already know so much about the patient grew out of the work of people sponsored by White. It was White who gave Sullivan, a somewhat eccentric man, a place to work and let him develop his additions to Freudian psychoanalysis as it was practiced at that time.

Having made the above point, which I believe is very important, I will overlook the narcissistic injury I, and many others, sustained when the author failed to mention that the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology-which flourishes in New York City 55 years after its founding-was also named in Dr. White's honor.

Clark Sugg, M.D.
New York, N.Y.