The Committee on Research and Special Training (CORST) of the American Psychoanalytic Association celebrated its 10th anniversary at the winter meeting by awarding the 2007 prize to Elise Miller for her paper, “Narrating Trauma: Autobiography and Healing.” Miller is a literary scholar and a psychotherapist, whose winning paper demonstrated both her sensitivity as a clinician to effects of trauma and her skillful reading of Dave Eggers's autobiographical novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Our judges appreciated the ways in which psychoanalytic theory and practice as well as her expertise in the field of autobiography informed her interpretation of this best-selling work. These strengths were on display as Miller led a “master class” in her presentation at the CORST lecture in New York, evoking a lively and rich discussion from the audience. The complex strategies of Eggers in writing about his parents' deaths, to which he bore painful witness as caretaker, raise important issues for psychoanalytic witnessing and listening to survivors.
Inaugurated at the winter meeting of the Association in 1996 to foster psychoanalytically informed research into the biobehavioral sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, the CORST Essay Prize has become one of APsaA's most distinguished prizes. Most of its winning essays have been published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA), which has rights of first refusal on all CORST winners. The winners over the past 10 years comprise an impressive array of scholarly and interdisciplinary distinction.
Fulfilling the mission of the CORST Prize as first articulated by the committee under the leadership of Peter Loewenberg, the following list of winners exemplifies the interdisciplinarity and sheer erudition of the prize winners. Such accomplishment and range of knowledge bear forth the theory and practice first enunciated by Sigmund Freud. His wide-ranging vision of diverse fields, from art history to philosophy, from neuroscience to law, from religion to clinical anesthesiology, must continue to be embraced by the theory and technique of contemporary psychoanalysis if we are to meaningfully interpret our culture and make a difference in the lives of our patients.
The following list testifies to the enduring richness of the field:
1997—“Exploring the Frontier from the Inside Out: The Art of John Sloan,” Janice Coco, Ph.D.
1998—“Diagnosing the English Patient: Contributions to Understanding Schizoid Fantasies,” Norman Doidge, M.D.
1999—“Melancholia's Cure or Resurrection by Poetry,” Laura Mandell, Ph.D.
2000—“The Role of Patronage in Melanie Klein's Clinical Work,” Joseph Aguayo, Ph.D.
2001—“Mourning Beyond Melancholia: Freud and Loss,” Tammy Clewell, Ph.D.
2002—“Negotiations of Surface: Archeology within the Early Strata of Psychoanalysis,” Diane O'Donoghue, Ph.D.
2003—“Psychoanalysis and the Ideal of Reasoned Deliberation in Constitutional Law,” Anne Dailey, J.D.
2004—“Lusting for Death: Some Unconscious Meanings of Martyrdom Traditions,” Naomi Janovitz, Ph.D.
2005—“Toward a General Theory of Unconscious Processes in Psychoanalysis and Anesthesiology,” George Masour, M.D.
2006—“Placing the Self: Dreaming, Discourse, and Disavowed Volition among the Tzotzil Maya of Highland Chaipas, Mexico,” Kevin Groark, Ph.D.
2007—“Narrating Trauma: Autobiography and Healing,” Elise Miller; Ph.D.
I am proud to have served as chair of the CORST Prize Committee for the past 10 years and appreciative to have had the assistance of Dottie Jeffries and the eminent juries who have been drawn from the ranks of CORST, including Peter Loewenberg, Volney Gay, Robert Paul, Jonathan Lear, Allen Stern, Mel Lansky, Nancy Chodorow, Laurie Wilson, Nellie Thompson, Jeffrey Prager, Lewis Kirshner, Paul Schwaber, Bert Cohler, Humphrey Morris, Sherwood Waldron, and Steve Levy. The hard, cheerful work as well as the brilliance of the juries over the years have added to the luster of the prize and will insure its continued success.
It is a particular pleasure to welcome Lewis Kirshner as the new chair of the CORST Prize Committee in 2008-09. We all eagerly anticipate another decade—-and beyond!—of sustained success under his leadership. This prize is a natural expression and outgrowth of the mission of CORST to extend the vision of psychoanalytic thought to the full range of human learning and to bring to bear upon this evolving theory of the mind that same range of knowledge and insight. Such reciprocal exchanges enrich the clinical and cultural soil of our psychoanalytic frontiers from which grows the new and transformative research and writing represented each year in the winning CORST essay.
Vera J. Camden, Ph.D., is professor of English at Kent State University, training and supervising analyst at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, and assistant clinical professor at Case Western Reserve University. The founding chair of the CORST Essay Prize, she is co-editor of American Imago.