William Alanson White Institute Wins Sigourney Award

In November 2003, The William Alanson White Institute was named a 2003 recipient of the Mary S. Sigourney Award in recognition of the Institute's distinguished contributions to the field of psychoanalysis. The award, which includes a $35,000 grant, is made annually to individuals and institutions around the world, but only once every three years in the United States.

The award was founded by Mary S. Sigourney, who was born on November 30, 1927, in St. Louis, Missouri and lived for many years in Northern California. She was a resident of Carmel Valley, California at the time of her death from cancer on October 19, 1988.

Mrs. Sigourney had a passionate interest in psychoanalysis and wished to encourage activity in the field. Her interests included the contribution of psychoanalysis to other fields and disciplines such as psychiatry, psychology, child care, anthropology, sociology, law, criminology, and the arts and humanities. During her lifetime, she funded several academic research programs concerned with psychoanalysis and allied fields such as anthropology and sociology. She was a licensed psychotherapist and held a Masters degree in marital, family, and child counseling while receiving some analytic training and personal analysis. She was also the publisher of a Bay Area periodical, The Advocate, that covered environmental, social, and community issues.

Mary Sigourney understood the significant contributions of, and the lasting benefits from, psychoanalysis and its applicability to human affairs. She was concerned that establishment psychoanalysts were preserving a closed system of training and practice with insufficient attention to applied psychoanalysis and research. In instituting the annual award, now drawn from the Mary S. Sigourney Trust, she wished to encourage new activity in the field by recognizing outstanding contributions from individuals and institutions.

On January 23, 2004, I was pleased to accept, as Director of the Institute,