Rosine Perelberg’s Work Wins The Sigourney Award - 2023
/Professor Rosine Perelberg Wins The Sigourney Award-2023 For Work Establishing a Creative Dialogue Between Psychoanalysis And Social Anthropology To Address Temporality, Sexuality and Antisemitism
Seattle, WA — Nov. 2, 2023 – Annually, The Sigourney Award bestows international recognition and a substantial cash prize for outstanding work completed within the past 10 years that advances psychoanalytic thought worldwide. A prestigious panel of judges carefully reviewed applicants from across the globe and today, Robin A. Deutsch, PhD and Analyst Co-Trustee of The Sigourney Award Trust, announces Rosine Perelberg, PhD, from London, England, as one of four international recipients presented the prestigious prize.
“Professor Perelberg’s interdisciplinary work incorporating social anthropology and principles of psychoanalytic thinking to positively influence the lives of countless people around the world reflects Mary Sigourney’s commitment to raising the visibility of psychoanalysis and its benefits for society,” said Deutsch.
Professor Rosine Perelberg’s open-minded work coalesces psychoanalytic and social anthropology expertise to create a forward-looking framework for the understanding of temporality, sexuality, and antisemitism. Offering an innovative interpretation of paternal and maternal functions, in both clinical practice and social phenomena, as well as a psychoanalytic understanding of the Shoah (Holocaust), her work emphasizes the relevance of psychoanalytic insights in navigating contemporary societal challenges. A practicing psychoanalyst and visiting professor at the University College London, Perelberg’s clinical work is rigorous, innovative, and poetic. Perelberg’s integration of British clinical traditions with French, American and Latin American conceptual psychoanalysis has profoundly influenced international psychoanalysis’ ability to acknowledge and learn from the various applications.
An acclaimed author, Perelberg’s work integrates her anthropological training with topics focused on phantasies of origin, exploring the infantile unconscious drives related to the symbolic functions of the maternal and paternal. The distinction between the murdered father and the dead father plays a crucial role in enhancing understanding of pressing social and political issues. In Sexuality, Excess and Representation she offers a ground-breaking psychoanalytic framework for the understanding of bisexuality and sexual difference. Under her leadership as president of the British Psychoanalytical Society (2019-2022), her international influence helped guide through the pandemic the protocols to continue the teaching and practice of psychoanalytic work virtually. Her seven-minute film, The Empty Couch, created at the onset of the pandemic had great social impact as it amassed nearly 5,000 views.
In the last 10 years, Perelberg has published five books which have been translated into seven languages, among them, Psychic Bisexuality: A British-French Dialogue, which brought a fresh and nuanced notion of bisexuality to mainstream psychoanalysis and to universities. The book earned the Best Edited Book Prize for 2019 by the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis.
Perelberg completed her master's degree in social anthropology at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, before receiving her PhD in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics, University of London.
“I was astonished to learn I’d won The Sigourney Award. It feels like an award one aspires to win; it is the most important professional achievement I’ve earned to date – a huge honor,” says Perelberg.
Her award-winning work is added to a long list of innovative contributions advancing psychoanalytic thought that, since 1990, have been honored with The Sigourney Award. This year, she shares this honor with Vittorio Lingiardi, MD (Rome, Italy); Daniel Pick, PhD (London, England); and Virginia Ungar, MD (Buenos Aires, Argentina), whose work also met the demanding Award criteria.