Heinz Hartmann Award

The Heinz Hartmann Award was presented to Erna Furman for her book, A Child's Parent Dies, at the meeting of the New York Psychoanalytic Society on 30 January, 1979. For the first time the recipient presented a paper in connection with the Award ceremony.

Established in 1964 by the gift of an anonymous donor to the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, the Award perpetuates the memory of Heinz Hartmann as a continuing stimulus to excellence in psychoanalysis. A close associate of Freud, twice president of the International Psycho-Analytical Association and honorary president after his retirement as well as president of both the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Hartmann was for more than two decades the outstanding theoretician in psychoanalysis. Through the broad perspective he brought from a knowledge of the humanities, philosophy, psychology and sociology, as well as the biological sciences, he provided a basis for psychoanalysis to become a general theory of psychology. In collaboration with Ernst Kris and Rudolph Loewenstein and many followers, he was largely responsible for the development of ego psychology into a conceptual instrument for the integration of theory and practice, thereby giving scientific direction to generations of analysts.

The Award, in honour of Heinz Hartmann, gives recognition, on the one hand, to seasoned analysts whose distinguished work already exemplifies the qualities inherent in Hartmann's own life works—creativity, challenge to old ideas, and emphasis on what is original, innovative, and useful in clinical or theoretical areas—and on the other, to younger colleagues whose contributions show similar promise. Past recipients have included Anna Freud, Rene Spitz, Charles Fisher, Robert S. Wallerstein, Max Schur, Marjorie McDonald, Otto F. Kernberg, Keinz Kohut, Ruth S. Eissler, Marshall Edelson, Margaret Mahler and Edith Jacobson.

Mrs Erna Furman is a member of the Cleveland Center for Research in Child Development and Ass