Giuseppe Civitarese’s Work Wins The Sigourney Award-2022
/Post-Bionian Model and Analytic Field Theory Work Earns Italian Dr. Giuseppe Civitarese The Sigourney Award-2022
Seattle, WA — Nov. 16, 2022 – The Sigourney Award annually rewards achievements that advance psychoanalytic thought with international recognition and a substantial cash prize. This year, a panel of distinguished judges evaluated work from an exceptional pool of applicants from around the world. Today, Robin A. Deutsch, PhD and Analyst Co-Trustee of The Sigourney Award Trust, is introducing Dr. Giuseppe Civitarese’s work developing post-Bionian models and analytic field theory and the work of four others that has won The Sigourney Award-2022.
Mary Sigourney founded The Sigourney Trust in 1989 to recognize and promote exceptional work that advances psychoanalytic principles and their ability to better humankind.
“Our judges conscientiously ensured that the work rewarded met Ms. Sigourney’s intentions of furthering and expanding outstanding psychoanalytic thought globally. Dr. Civitarese’s work developing post-Bionian models and analytic field theory and expanding the application to meet contemporary society’s mental health needs, embodies her vision,” says Dr. Deutsch.
Civitarese’s innovative efforts have primarily focused on such themes as elaboration of Bion’s thought, the development of post-Bionian models and analytic field theory. His work extended Bion’s reformulation of the concept of “hallucinosis” in a way that deciphers and transforms this difficult Bionian concept into comprehensible psychoanalytic technique. Civitarese extends these ideas to show how human subjectivity is also intersubjective, essentially positing that mental life is rooted in co-being with others. His work has empowered the analyst to be receptive to the unconscious no longer only in terms of the I/you split but of the intersubjective we.
Part of Civitarese’s contribution is his ability to describe this shift conceptually and to evoke the experience of analytic transformation for readers in how he writes. His work emphasizes how the analytic encounter, previously focused on individual subjectivity, is enlivened and increasingly effective if it is viewed as a group process. Civitarese’s scientific, institutional, and cultural endeavors have contributed to the ongoing renovation of psychoanalysis to keep it alive and able to meet the real challenges of our times, as one of the finest instruments available to treat mental suffering and understand the mind.
“My work, although sometimes dealing with abstract and difficult concepts, is always grounded in a concern to improve the treatment of mental suffering, and I’m very proud my efforts have earned The Sigourney Award’s recognition,” says Civitarese. “Besides, psychoanalysis is a scientific discipline that can have an important impact on humanity as it makes us understand the fine social structure of subjectivity. This awareness also makes psychoanalysis (as a critical theory) a knowledge tool that can facilitate processes of mutual recognition and conflict resolution between different cultures."
Civitarese is a sought-after international lecturer and a renowned author, and his work inspires fruitful dialogue with other disciplines (philosophy, literature, narratology, neurosciences, psychiatry, aesthetics, etc.) and with classical psychoanalysis, as evidenced by a series of works dedicated to Freud's thought. Examples include his essays on the Dora case, “Formulations on the principles of mental functioning”, Nachträglichkeit, masochism and the Fort-Da game in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Civilization and its Discontent, etc.). Civitarese’s contributions have helped position Italian psychoanalysis on the international stage through his work as editor for the Rivista Di Psicoanalisi and and The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual, both Journals of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society, over the four-year period 2013-2017. Additionally, along with several young colleagues he founded a non-profit cultural association, ilcampoanalitico (theanalyticfield) to expand development of psychoanalytic thinking with a focus on analytical field theory.
Beyond theoretical and clinical essays, Civitarese has written three books on contemporary art and literature, including Losing your Head: Abjection, Aesthetic Conflict, and Psychoanalytic Criticism (2015). Italian language titles include L’ora della nascita: Psicoanalisi del sublime e arte contemporanea [The Hour of Birth: Psychoanalysis of the Sublime and Contemporary Art] , which won the Gradiva-Lavarone prize for the best psychoanalytic book of the year in Italy (2020); and (with others), Psiche nasce nella stanza di amore. Nuove letture per la camera di Amore e Psiche di Palazzo Te [Psyche is Born in the Room of Love. New Readings for the Room of Cupid and Psyche at Palazzo Te], (2018), and “Blackness of Red: Anish Kapoor and the Sublimation of the Flesh”, a chapter in Anish Kapoor's recent Venice exhibition catalog.
“I have tried to re-found psychoanalytic criticism of art (cinema, painting, literature), basing it no longer on the rigid 'top-down' application of psychoanalytic categories but by establishing a dialogue marked by reciprocity: not only what psychoanalysis can say about art but also what art can say about psychoanalysis,” says Civitarese.
Barbara Sherland, J.D., Attorney Co-Trustee of The Sigourney Award Trust, says, “We are proud to have received such forward-thinking and influential applications, and congratulate Dr. Civitarese in the advancements his own work has provided in extending the reach of psychoanalysis and helping improve mental health treatments available throughout the world.”
His 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, he shares this honor with Dr. Jack Drescher (New York, USA), Dr. Dorothy Holmes (South Carolina, USA), Professor Alessandra Lemma (London, UK), and Dr. Edward Tronick (Massachusetts, USA), whose work also met the demanding Award criteria.