Eva P. Lester, MD, 1999

Dr. Lester was a professor of psychiatry on the faculty of medicine at McGill University, a training and supervising analyst with the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis, and editor in chief of the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalsis. She was the author of fundamental contributions to psychoanalytic theory and technique. Her book, published jointly with Glen Gabbard, on “Boundaries and Boundry Violations in Pyschoanalysis” is considered a classic on the subject. She had an uninterrupted stream of outstanding papers published on a broad range of subjects including female psychology, the psychoanalytic implications of pregnancy, erotic transference, training analysis, applications of psychoanalysis to literary productions, the influence of gender of analyst and patient on the analytic process, countertransference, sexual orientation and sexual response in women (plasticity and changes through the life cycle), and an earlier number of papers on childhood schizophrenia, child psychotherapy, and development. At the time of the award she had begun preliminary work on issues of gender in ancient Greece with a focus on the work of the poet Sappho.