In this chapter I discuss one aspect of my professional development:
Harry Stack Sullivan's influence On me and on the evolution and practice
of Therapeutic Assessment. Then I point out specific features of Thera-
peutic Assessment that are consonant :with Sullivan's thought. I con-
clude by discussing how Sullivan's vision of the therapeutic process can
inform psychological assessment in general.
    My Contacts with Sulljvan and Sullivan's
Writings

    I may be rare in having been exposed to Sullivant s work while I was an
undergraduate. My advisor at Haverford College was Douglas A. Davis,
a personaltty psychologist who was quite interested in sullivan. I remember
Davis mentioning Sullivan to me in several discussions while I was a freshman.

    Handler (2000) did a beautiful job of elucidating Sullivan's concept of
the clinician as participant-observer. Again I would like to contrast this
to the logical-positivist view behind much traditional assessment, where
 a goal is set of the assessors being a "completely objective" observer. This
is why standardized data collection procedures are highly emphasized in
this model, so that (in analogy to collecting a blo-od sample), we don't get
"germs in the test tube" by introducing any of our stimulus value as a
person.
    For this reason, following Fischer's (1985/1994) lead, my colleagues
and I write all our assessment reports in the first person and attempt to
acknowledge our part in the uuerpersonal field of the assessment.