Estela Welldon Prize 2021

The British Journal of Psychotherapy is delighted to announce the establishment of the Estela Welldon Prize. Dr Estela V. Welldon worked for 40 years at the Portman Clinic in London as Consultant Psychiatrist and Consultant Psychotherapist. She is the Founder and Honorary President for Life of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy, which, since its foundation, has held professional meetings every year in different parts of the world. Dr Welldon is the author, among many other works, of Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of Motherhood, which challenged the traditional psychoanalytic theory that perversions are unique to males and which exposed the nature of female sexual offending. Creator of the world's first ever training course in forensic psychotherapy, in collaboration with the medical school at University College London, she has worked as both an individual and group practitioner for decades and continues to do so.

‘As a psychiatrist’, Dr Welldon has written, ‘I have spent my time contemplating the depths of the human psyche - sometimes in despair but usually in wonderment. As a forensic psychotherapist, I have continually been drawn to “the beauty hidden within the ugly”.’ She has often stated that every practitioner must search for the “golden nugget” of goodness and approachability within every patient, even those who seem unapproachable, such as certain forensic patients. The Prize, which is co-sponsored by the BJP and the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy, will be awarded annually to the author of a paper which contributes to our understanding of the shadow side of human nature - the ugly side, or what we might previously have called the ‘dark side’ of humanity. This might refer to acts of forensic violence, or cruelty in more intimate contexts. The Prize will be given to the paper which both illuminates the nature of human psychopathology in this area, and which reveals how the analytic clinician