This past December, as in every December since 1990, the Mary S. Sigourney Awards, among the highest awards bestowed in psychoanalysis, were presented to distinguished scholars (and institutions) who had made major contributions to our field in the decade preceding the award. The awards, given in rotation among international regions — the 1998 honorees work in Europe — recognize scholarly achievement, originality, and influence in the teaching or practice of psychoanalysis. They are presented at a gala dinner sponsored by the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research at the Fall Meeting of the American. Each award carries a cash gift from a charitable trust endowed by the late Mary S. Sigourney. Bernard Pasella announced the winners in his capacity as trustee of the Sigourney Award Trust.
This year, there were four individual recipients: Jacqueline Amati Mehler, Ilse Grubrich-Simitis, Anne-Marie Sandler, and Daniel Widlöcher. Each of the recipients was introduced by a psychoanalyst who had previously received the award.
On behalf of the International Psychoanalytical Association Standing Conference on Psychoanalytic Research, Robert Wallerstein, the first chair of that committee, presented an award to Peter Fonagy. The committee holds an annual conference in London with 250 participants from around the world. Fonagy, Wallerstein said, “raised the committee to new heights.” The research summer school brings together fifteen to twenty researchers for ten days. Under Otto Kernberg's presidency, the committee has received $200,000 for research. Fonagy's thanks included the “faculty of the research training program who introduced a new generation to research.” The award will be used to support research.
An award was presented to the Menninger Clinic and accepted by Glen Gabbard and Efrain Bleiberg. Gabbard accepted the award on behalf of both the Menninger Clinic and the Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis, the first institute west of the Mississippi. He mentioned Menninger's “long association with research, education, and clinical work,” its child and family center, its work on preventative intervention, and its research on personality disorders.
Mortimer Ostow accepted an award on behalf of the Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund, which was established forty-five years ago under the aegis of Herman Nunberg. The fund established groups to study such diverse topics as reconstruction, psychic trauma, child development, affect regulation, analysis, and psychopharmacology and has published six books. Recently it has supported studies of analyses of older patients and prolonged analyses.
Robert Glick accepted an award for the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. He remarked, “It is a rare experience that there is this much support for psychoanalytic research from a private foundation.” He mentioned several important psychoanalytic researchers at Columbia — Steven Roose, Susan Vaughan, and Deborah Cabaniss — and noted that the prize would be used to support outcome research.
Harold Blum introduced Jacqueline Amati Mehler, a former secretary of the IPA, now vice president of that organization and president of the Italian Psychoanalytical Association. He described her as “an esteemed teacher and training analyst … the author of important contributions to the psychoanalytic literature … an extraordinary author, lecturer, lecturer, supervisor.” She is the author of Bubble of Unconscious. Mehler's response was succinct: “I am extremely honored and deeply moved.”
Otto Kernberg spoke about Anne-Marie Sandler, praising her achievements as researcher, teacher, clinician, and administrator. She directs the Anna Freud Center and is a vice president of the IPA. Kernberg described her as “innovative and inspiring … a warm gentle person who stands up for her convictions.”
Sandler described herself as one of “the Anna Freud girls.” She learned that “no topic is too small to be concerned about” and added a touching thanks to her other major mentor, her husband, the late Joseph Sandler.
Peter Neubauer introduced Ilse Grubrich-Simitis, a member of the German Psychoanalytical Institute. He described her as “a well known and outstanding editor of Freud's work.” She has indexed eighteen volumes of Freud and has edited his work. Her insightful commentary placed special emphasis on the tension between Freud's scientific and literary bent. In accepting the award, Grubrich-Simitis mentioned her delight and pride at this unexpected news. She commented that the manuscripts in the Library of Congress have opened new vistas on Freud's thought: “Freud is not obsolete but indispensable to human sciences.”
Harold Blum introduced Professor Daniel Widlöcher, a former secretary and vice president of the IPA: “In addition to his work in psychoanalysis, he has a tremendous curiosity and knowledge about art, literature and philosophy.” Blum mentioned Widlöcher's extraordinary and profound paper on identification, which was presented at the Hamburg Congress. Widlöcher thanked the judges and trustees for a double honor. In addition to his individual award, he is also part of the IPA Research Committee. He plans to continue his empirical research and work on theoretical models.