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Helen Morgan's paper ‘To Paint the Portrait of a Bird’: analytic work from the perspective of a ‘developmental’ Jungian (JAP 2012, 57) has been awarded the Jan Lee Prize for 2013, covering papers published between June 2011 and June 2012.
The prize is awarded each year, one year in arrears, for papers that bring together analysis and the arts, using each field to illuminate the other. It was the idea of, and is named after Jan Lee, who died in 2006 from breast cancer. Jan Lee was a member of the SAP and had begun to write and teach in this domain herself and wanted to encourage others to continue, even though she was herself unable to do so. Further information is available at janleeprize.co.uk.
The Prize Committee commented:
This paper fulfils one of the guiding principles of the prize—that the paper should use something from the field of art to illuminate psychotherapeutic work. Helen begins by quoting Jacques Prévert's poem, ‘To Paint the Portrait of a Bird’, and from there weaves a picture of the art and humanity of psychotherapy. She explores the analytic frame, illustrating how the therapist sets up the space (first paints the cage for the bird) in which the patient can feel contained and, if all goes well, their soul-bird-self can come to ‘sing’. Helen talks movingly of the lasting effect that the analyst and patient have on each other…