Student Associates Inaugurate Sabshin Awards

Many of us have had a cherished teacher whom we hold above all others. This teacher brought talents and investments beyond the ordinary, offering the student a unique perspective, exceptional motivation — and personal time, moral support, and mentorship. From this many students take away something far greater than the knowledge the teacher hopes to impart: more creative ways of thinking, an enriched personal understanding, an evolving professional identity. Often the teacher is “carried with” the student throughout his or her entire professional career.

Edith Sabshin was such a teacher. Among her more valued attributes were her breadth of knowledge and the energy with which she transmitted wisdom. To recognize gifted teachers of psychoanalysis and dynamic psychotherapy to non-candidate students, the American has established annual Edith Sabshin Teaching Awards.

Sabshin came to psychoanalytic education by way of the sciences. Born Edith Goldfarb, she showed considerable talent in the sciences at an early age. She studied physics at Yale University, earning a master's degree in physics at a time when obtaining a college education and pursuing a career was, for a woman, an exception to the rule. A fact little known outside her circle of close friends was that Sabshin worked with Enrico Fermi on his chain reaction experiments. Nonetheless, with a growing interest in medicine, Sabshin attended medical school at the University of Chicago and entered her residency at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, where she met and married Melvin Sabshin. Within a short time she was an attending at Michael Reese Hospital and a candidate at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, while remaining active in teaching dynamic psychotherapy to residents at the University of Chicago. Well into her teaching career with residents, she became a training and supervising analyst at the Chicago Institute.

Because of a move prompted by Mel Sabshin's American Psychiatric Association medical directorship, she eventually became a training and supervising analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. In spite of Edith Sabshin's deep involvement in the Washington psychoanalytic community at the time of her death, Chicago colleagues proudly claim her as their own, and even created the Edith Sabshin Memorial Lectureship in her name.

At the time Edith Sabshin joined the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, it was experiencing controversy among its senior members. Her capacity to soothe, heal, and rebuild bridges between and among members was highly valued. She quickly became a well-respected member of the Education Committee and was integral to an important subcommittee that studied supervision in the institute. Regarded as an excellent supervisor, she was a favorite among Washington Psychoanalytic Institute candidates and Georgetown University residents alike.

Sabshin was immersed in the structure of the American and known to be unafraid of tackling difficult and sometimes unpopular matters, such as the de-linkage proposal. Throughout the long, often heated debates, she was known to be generous with her time, dedicated to seeing the project through, respectful of her opponents, and highly responsive to and facilitating of others engaged in the process. She was also chair of the Affiliates Committee. Gerald Melchiode, taking over as chair at the time of Sabshin's illness, admired her ability to engage group members of seemingly disparate positions. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Affiliate Council grew out of Sabshin's commitment to her junior colleagues in The American.

Keeping Psychoanalysis Alive

It was Sabshin's deep involvement in teaching psychoanalytic principles and concepts that brought her the greatest joy. She was seen as a natural teacher; friends and colleagues affectionately described her as both engaging and deeply engaged in her personal and professional relationships, a stimulating instructor and conversationalist, and a cultivated woman with an appreciation for the humanities.

After a long battle, Edith Sabshin succumbed to cancer in 1992 at the age of sixty-eight. Her passing was seen as a great loss for psychoanalysis and for the promulgation of psychoanalytic ideas outside psychoanalysis. It is for the teaching of non-candidate students that the American and the Committee on Student Associates especially honor her now.

In the spirit of Sabshin's personal qualities and teaching contributions to non-candidate students, the American is seeking nominations for the Edith Sabshin Teaching Award. An underlying goal in honoring teachers is to promote psychoanalytic understanding as a standard part of training in academic programs and to keep psychoanalysis alive in the minds of the next generation of practitioners and the community.

Nominees must be (1) gifted and hardworking teachers of non-candidate students, (2) members of the American and members or candidates in good standing of a society or institute, and (3) recognized locally as outstanding teachers. Nominees might also be student associate mentors, involved in their local or national student association, published on the subject of student education, and involved in administration at the graduate level or higher.

Society presidents may write letters of nomination to Ellen Fertig at the APsaA central office, who will forward letters of nomination to the Edith Sabshin Awards Committee (chaired by Frederic J. Levine and including Eric Marcus, David Goldberg, and Stephanie Smith). Winners will receive a certificate of award from the APsaA president and will have their names read at the December Meeting of Members. Winners' names and societies will be published in TAP.

The deadline for nominations is October 15, 1999. Individuals may direct questions to Gerald Melchiode, Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Student Associates, at 214-373-6195.