Honoring Outstanding Psychoanalytic Work Worldwide
Advancing Possibilities Through Action
“The 2025 recipients’ work demonstrates a renaissance of creative and applied psychoanalytic thought. This work enhances and influences understanding and acceptance of psychoanalysis and its benefits to society,” says Robin A. Deutsch, PhD, Analyst Trustee.
| Advancing Possibilities Through Action
| Advancing Possibilities Through Action
“The 2025 recipients’ work demonstrates a renaissance of creative and applied psychoanalytic thought. This work enhances and influences understanding and acceptance of psychoanalysis and its benefits to society,” says Robin A. Deutsch, PhD, Analyst Trustee.
Salem Eid Al-Arjani, PhD
GAZA, PALESTINE
Dr. Salem Eid Al-Arjani's cutting-edge work with children and adolescents possesses a unique position, operating within a shared, active trauma field where both the analyst and patient share an uncontained and unstable reality. He asks a question psychoanalysis has rarely faced: how can a child's psyche be helped while the catastrophe is still happening?
Salem Eid Al-Arjani, PhD
GAZA, PALESTINE
Dr. Salem Eid Al-Arjani's cutting-edge work with children and adolescents possesses a unique position, operating within a shared, active trauma field where both the analyst and patient share an uncontained and unstable reality. He asks a question psychoanalysis has rarely faced: how can a child's psyche be helped while the catastrophe is still happening?
Salem Eid Al-Arjani, PhD
GAZA, PALESTINE
Dr. Salem Eid Al-Arjani's cutting-edge work with children and adolescents possesses a unique position, operating within a shared, active trauma field where both the analyst and patient share an uncontained and unstable reality. He asks a question psychoanalysis has rarely faced: how can a child's psyche be helped while the catastrophe is still happening?
Paula Christian-Kliger, PhD, ABPP
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Dr. Paula Christian-Kliger's extraordinary interdisciplinary work demonstrates the transformative potential of psychoanalytic ideas far beyond the clinical setting, making an important contribution to social and institutional change. A psychoanalyst, author, and artist, she has developed a relational, trauma-informed model grounded in humanistic and Buddhist practices that brings the psychic and emotional layers of experience into view and fosters mutual learning. Her reach is intentionally broad: intensive clinical treatment for young adults and families; leadership work in Fortune 500 companies that deepens self-awareness and strengthens collaboration; experiential life-skills learning for neurodiverse youth; and public art that invites self-reflection and dialogue in marginalized communities.
Juan-Eduardo Tesone, MD, PhD
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
Dr. Juan-Eduardo Tesone, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, has expanded psychoanalytic theory into a domain long kept at a distance – incest, which he calls "the unthinkable and unthought-about taboo." In Trauma: A Pain Without a Subject (Routledge, 2024), he offers a framework for understanding how sexual violence and psychological trauma may compromise psychic organization, symbolization, and its capacity to articulate suffering within a coherent sense of self. Tesone has also turned this understanding into protection for children.
University College London
Psychoanalysis Unit Organization
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
The University College London Psychoanalysis Unit, led by Dr. Elizabeth Allison, has done what many believed psychoanalysis could not: put psychoanalytic ideas to rigorous scientific testing without stripping away what makes them psychoanalytic. UCL’s team of more than 30 researchers and clinicians developed and tested Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT), which strengthens mentalizing: the capacity to understand ourselves and others in terms of thoughts and feelings. In a landmark trial, published in The Lancet Psychiatry in 2025, men on probation with antisocial personality disorder who received MBT showed about half the aggression of a comparison group and committed 46% fewer offences over three years.
Juan-Eduardo Tesone, MD, PhD
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
Dr. Juan-Eduardo Tesone, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, has expanded psychoanalytic theory into a domain long kept at a distance – incest, which he calls "the unthinkable and unthought-about taboo." In Trauma: A Pain Without a Subject (Routledge, 2024), he offers a framework for understanding how sexual violence and psychological trauma may compromise psychic organization, symbolization, and its capacity to articulate suffering within a coherent sense of self. Tesone has also turned this understanding into protection for children.
“The persistent rumors of the irrelevance of psychoanalysis have once again been powerfully refuted by the extraordinary work being done around the world by clinicians, researchers, writers, activists, and artists.”
–The Sigourney Award Judge, 2025
Mary’s Mindset: Reward & Inspire
Mary Sigourney wanted to reward and inspire great work from every corner of the world. Emeritus Trustee Jim Devine shares Mary’s expansive and inclusion vision in this video. If your work, has reshaped understanding, sparked dialogue, influenced culture, or transformed lives through psychoanalytic principles or thought, we invite you to step forward and apply.
Myth or Truth
For more than three decades, The Sigourney Award has honored exceptional contributions to the field of psychoanalysis on a global scale. Mary Sigourney’s independent trust established an Award to acknowledge and foster the integration of psychoanalytic concepts across various disciplines.
Our mission is to inspire individuals worldwide to either submit their work for consideration or nominate others whose contributions stand out. As members of The Sigourney Award’s Volunteer Advisory Council, we hope to offer facts that dispel untruths and help broaden worldwide recognition of the Award.
2024 Advisory Council
Ines Bayona Villegas, Columbia | Stefano Bolognini, MD, Italy | Peter Fonagy PhD, United Kingdom | Glen Gabbard, MD, United States | Maria Teresa Savio Hooke, OAM, Australia | Mark Solms, MD, PhD, South Africa
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Contrary to the belief that The Sigourney Award is a culmination of a lifetime’s work, it is not a lifetime achievement award. Mary Sigourney stipulated that the award should recognize work accomplished within the decade preceding the award year, making it accessible to a broader range of professionals at various stages of their careers.
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While nominations are welcomed and valued, eligibility for The Sigourney Award is not contingent upon nomination by peers within the psychoanalytic community. Self-nominated and peer-nominated applicants undergo the same comprehensive evaluation process.
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Actually, The Sigourney Award honors contributions that employ psychoanalytic concepts in innovative ways across a diverse array of fields. Work eligible for consideration may include achievements in academic research, clinical practice, and other disciplines such as anthropology, the arts, child development, criminology, law, medicine, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.
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The work needs to be outstanding or innovative, not necessarily well-known. The Sigourney Award’s application process is designed to help applicants describe the impact of their work and how it has advanced psychoanalytic thought or principles within the ten year period prior to the Award.
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The work needs to be outstanding or innovative, The Sigourney Award is not restricted by geographic region or language barriers. The application process now accommodates submissions in over 150 languages. The Sigourney Award’s application process is designed to help applicants describe the impact of their work and how it has advanced psychoanalytic thought or principles within the ten year period prior to the Award.
In Their Own Words
Learn more about the diverse work of our honorees in these brief videos.
Welcoming the World
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Welcoming the World *
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Apply in 2027
Applicants are encouraged submit work that applies or contributes psychoanalytic principles to medicine, psychiatry, other sciences, the arts, literature, or film. Applications will be accepted from all geographic locations starting March 1, 2027.
Extraordinary Work From Around the Globe
Our community of honorees represent the forward-thinking that founder Mary Sigourney envisioned. Explore the impact made by past Award Recipient’s work.
Sigourney News
