Four of America's most esteemed psychoanalysts were honored December 16 at the fifth annual Mary S. Sigourney Awards Dinner. Those receiving the individual awards—Merton Gill, Peter Neubauer, Roy Schafer, and Leo Stone—were joined in the honors by two institutions, the Library of Congress and the Committee on Scientific Activities of the American Psychoanalytic Association. The award, which carries with it a cash prize, was endowed by Mary Sigourney through a charitable trust established in 1989. Created to recognize individuals for original psychoanalytic work, scholarly achievement, contributions to psychoanalytic education, and significant influence on analytic thought and practice, the award also goes to organizations for outstanding achievements in psychoanalytic education and research. Cotrustees Bernard Pacella, recent past president of The American, and James Devine, once Mary Sigoumey's lawyer, appoint an independent panel of judges to select recipients. The awards are rotated geographically in three-year cycles to recipients from the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the world. In 1993 the awards went to Willy Baranger and Isidora Berenstein of Argentina, Patrick Mahony of Canada, and Max Hernandez of Peru.
The ceremony opened with an introduction by Roger MacKinnon, director of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, sponsor of the annual event. Pacella then welcomed the audience and thanked Devine for his fidelity in carrying out Mary Sigourney's wishes.
The first recipient, Leo Stone, was introduced by Sidney Furst, who remarked on Stone's undiminished enthusiasm for his work and on the generations of analysts he has taught at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Stone is perhaps best known for his papers on transference and the widening scope of psychoanalysis, and for his book The Psychoanalytic Situation, through which he has had a significant influence on the practice of psychoanalysis. Furst made special mention of the extraordinary affection people have for Leo Stone. He described him as an analyst's analyst, a confidant, a consultant, and a friend. Stone at the age of ninety remains engaged in research, consultation, and treatment, and is currently at work on a study of prolonged analysis underwritten by the Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund. After Furst's presentation, Anton Kris added some warm remarks of his own.
Next Harold Blum introduced Peter Neubauer, one of the founders of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis. Consultant to institutes throughout the world, Neubauer has played a central role in the child analytic programs at all three New York institutes. He also has made major contributions to the literature on child psychoanalysis, particularly on the topic of early childhood development and assessment. Most recently he has written a book with his son, Nature's Thumbprint. For many years he has been an editor of The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child and has served on the board of directors of both the Sigmund Freud Archives and the Sigmund Freud Gesellschaft of Vienna. In accepting the award, Neubauer remarked on the significance Anna Freud's diagnostic instrument, the metapsychological profile, has held for him. He expressed an excitement about questions currently being explored in psychoanalysis and an interest in neuroscience and genetics, fields he sees as ripe for analytic exploration. He accepted the award as an encouragement for just such investigations into the “unending possibilities in our field.”
Merton Gill died only days after being named a recipient and was sadly missed at the ceremony. Robert Michels, an ardent admirer, described how central Gill had been to the leading debates in psychoanalysis over the past forty years. Michels remarked on the evolution of Gill's thought, whereby earlier ideas often posed the strongest arguments against later ones. Always most concerned with the clinical process, Gill eschewed theory as an end in itself in favor of its use as a tool toward the understanding that develops between analyst and analysand. Ilse Judas, Gill's widow, received the award in his name, expressing warm thanks for its recognition of “a life dedicated to psychoanalysis.”
Next Ethel Person, introducing Roy Schafer, described him as a “peripatetic man” in his wide journeys across “the intellectual terrain of our field.” His importance as a contributor to psychoanalytic thought began in his early years at Menninger, where he was an assistant to David Rapaport. A man of wide reading, Schafer often integrates ideas from other fields, particularly philosophy, into his psychoanalytic thinking. Over the years he has written over 130 papers and chapters, but he is perhaps best known for his eight books, including Aspects of Internalization, The Analytic Attitude, and, most recently, Retelling a Life. Lately he has written on and participated in many panels on the work of Melanie Klein, becoming a leader in introducing Americans to her thought. Person closed by saying that although Schafer sees himself as a maverick, it is for this, precisely, that he is most valued. In accepting the award, Schafer spoke of the endless fascination he finds in psychoanalysis.
The Library of Congress was recognized for its work in preserving, storing, cataloguing, and—soon to come—exhibiting the work of Sigmund Freud. The library holds the world's largest collection of material related to Freud, consisting of over eighty thousand items. Harold Blum, director of the Freud Archives, discussed the special relationship, in part contractual, between the two organizations. In 1996, he noted, the library will present what bids to be the largest exhibit of Freud material ever assembled. Called “Freud: Conflict and Culture,” it is expected to be the most widely attended exhibit the library has ever mounted. Hiram Davis, deputy director of the library, accepted the award, acknowledging its importance for the Freud collection.
The last award of the evening went to The American's Committee on Scientific Activities. Alvin Frank, chair of the committee, noted that its goal is to provide an “infrastructure” for psychoanalytic therapy and research. Its current project, the Psychoanalytic Archives CD-ROM Text, or PACT, will ultimately place the entire body of psychoanalytic literature on a single CD-ROM disk. The cash prize, he said, would greatly advance the project.