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PSY120_V2 | Topic 6: Adolescence

Theory Essay Example

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PSY120

Theory Essay

31 July 2023

Caregiver Relationships

Harry Stack Sullivan was a developmental psychologist

interested in the ways in which close relationships impact people

across their lives. Specifically, Sullivan believed that different kinds

of relationships were important at different times in development.

During infancy and early childhood, he thought that caregiver

relationships were most important, because they fulfilled a child’s

physical needs like food, shelter, and safety. In his work, Sullivan
was building on earlier psychodynamic and attachment theories
that focused on the importance of children’s relationships with

their caregivers in terms of shaping personality and emotions In

later childhood and into adolescence, Sullivan believed that friends

became more important. At adolescence, Sullivan thought that

close friendships were central to development, because friends

offer support and emotional closeness as kids grow up and start

to have relationships outside of the family.
 I think Sullivan was right about friendships being so important

in adolescence. During this time, kids are very concerned about

belonging to the group and about what others think of them.
Having friends is important so that kids have someone to hang out

with and talk to. Talking with friends is one way kids get support
for their problems. The research articles talk about how getting

social support is important, but that too much of a certain kind of

support, co-rumination, might not be so great.

Co-rumination is defined as the excessive discussion of

problems with a friend, and it involves rehashing, speculating,

focusing on negative feelings, and both friends encouraging the

problem talk to keep going (Rose, 2021). On the one hand, co-

rumination may benefit adolescents, because it is related to more

positive and higher quality friendships. This means that friends

trust each other and support one another. However, there are

downsides, or tradeoffs, to co-rumination. In her 2021 paper, Rose

says that co-rumination is linked with internalizing symptoms,

which means symptoms of depression and anxiety. Rose and

colleagues (2017) also found that girls who co-ruminate a lot with

their friends can actually increase the amount of peer stress that

occurs in their lives in the future. This means that co-rumination

may serve a stress generation function (Rose et al., 2017).

If Dr. Sullivan talked with Dr. Rose today, I think maybe he would
be surprised that there might be downsides to certain types of

social support, like co-rumination. Back when Sullivan was

working on his theory, he may not have thought about what

happens when people get too much of a certain kind of social

support. Focusing too much on your problems with friends might

 actually not be the best thing for some people. Sullivan might want

to update his theory to say that getting social support from your

friends for your problems might be a little like eating cake: it’s
good to have some (because it’s important for a good life), but you

don’t want to only eat cake. Once in a while it’s good to get some

vegetables, too. In other words, social support from friends is

important, but having a healthy life will involve other coping skills,

like being physically active, doing things you’re good at, and maybe

even talking to a therapist instead of just dwelling with your friends

on how bad your problems make you feel.

References

Rose (2021). The costs and benefits of co-rumination. Child

Development Perspectives, 15, 176-181.

Rose, A. J., Glick, G. C., Smith, R. L., Schwartz-Mette, R. A.,

Borowski, S. K. (2017). Co-rumination exacerbates stress

generation among adolescents with depressive symptoms.

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 45, 985-995.

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