rm tensions into behaviors that satisfy needs and reduce anxiety. Anxiety differs from tensions that are due to needs; it is vague and does not call for consistent actions. Anxiety is empathically transmitted from the mother to the baby and since all adults have anxiety there is no way to shield the baby from this distress and the mother cannot relieve this anxiety.á Therefore a self-system is developed to shield the self from the anxiety.á This anxiety is the main disruptive force that blocks the development of healthy interpersonal relations (Feist & Feist, 2002).
Dynamisms (traits or habits) are developed as energy transformations become organized into behavior patterns. Malevolence is a disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred that develops when a child lives with anxiety and pain and needs that are not met. Intimacy grows from tenderness and close interpersonal relationships. The most complex of all dynamisms is the self-system. As the person deals with anxiety they develop the self-system and its strategies. Security operations guard against interpersonal tensions and include dissociation and selective inattention. Personifications, or images that an individual has of him- or herself or of another person are formed.á Personifications such as the "good me" and "bad me" are major components of the self-as-object.á These personifications develop and become more complex over time.á Regarding the development of the "I," a negative course is followed; as the self-system grows, it becomes less connected to the rest of the personality (Feist & Feist, 2002).
For Sullivan, psychological disorders have an interpersonal origin that can only be understood b
...