The Sigourney Award-2025 Celebrates Four Recipients Honored for Creative Trailblazing Work Expanding Psychoanalytic Thought Globally

Interdisciplinary Work from Israel, Uruguay, and the United States Earns The Prestigious Sigourney Award-2025 Prize

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The trailblazing work of four recipients has won The Sigourney Award-2025, earning international recognition and a substantial cash prize for advancing psychoanalytic thought and principles throughout the world. Announced today by Robin A. Deutsch, PhD, Analyst Co-Trustee of The Sigourney Award Trust, recipients include: Dana Amir, PhD (Haifa, Israel); Calibán, Latin American Journal of Psychoanalysis (Montevideo, Uruguay); Siri Hustvedt, PhD (New York, USA); and ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action (New York, USA).

"The 2025 recipients' work demonstrates a renaissance of creative and applied psychoanalytic thought. Their contributions span theory, visual arts, literature, poetry, and applied and clinical practice enhancing the richness of the psychoanalytic endeavor. This work enhances and influences understanding and acceptance of psychoanalysis and its benefits to society," says Dr. Deutsch.

Founded by Mary Sigourney in 1989, The Sigourney Award was established to annually recognize and promote exceptional achievements of the past decade that foster greater understanding, innovation, and acceptance of psychoanalysis and its societal benefits. A notable panel of anonymous judges evaluated a broad spectrum of work from 11 countries and selected four bodies of work that most closely aligned with Sigourney's vision. Full summaries of the recipients' work are available at www.sigourneyaward.org.

Dana Amir, PhD (Haifa, Israel)
Professor Dana Amir's pioneering work has brought a novel and sophisticated perspective to the study of how trauma is conveyed in language. Her work portrays the traumatic lacuna as a melting pot of language that creates multiple forms of external and internal syntax. Her research delves into both perpetrators' and victims' testimonies, focusing on aspects such as word choice, tone, rhythm, and inflection. By mapping the interplay between dissociative and associative forces, she has identified new pathways for therapeutic intervention, demonstrating that language can serve simultaneously as a symptom of trauma and a vehicle for healing. Amir's research and insights on the language of revenge and forgiveness have become a vital tool for both therapeutic and broader social interventions and provided a framework for facilitating dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.

Calibán , Latin American Journal of Psychoanalysis (Montevideo, Uruguay)
Calibán, Latin American Journal of Psychoanalysis, the official journal of the Psychoanalytic Federation of Latin America (FEPAL), is a stunning and engaging international journal that has cultivated both critical thinking and cultural expansion within the psychoanalytic community. Calibán provides a space where psychoanalytic theory meaningfully engages with linguistic diversity, cultural perspectives, and social and artistic sensibilities. Driven by a devoted team of ~80 volunteers hailing from various countries, Calibán is renowned for its collaborative editorial initiatives. Originally published in both Spanish and Portuguese, Calibán is now also translated into English. It is a global resource for both scientific and popular readership on its freely accessible digital platform. Calibán embodies a collaborative spirit and capacity for dialogue that continues to grow ever stronger and is led by María Luisa Silva, Calibán's Editor-in-Chief.

Siri Hustvedt, PhD (New York, USA)
Dr. Siri Hustvedt's extraordinary work mines rich seams in psychoanalysis, literature, and culture and has significantly advanced the ongoing relevance of psychoanalysis in current intellectual and cultural discourse. An international author of both fiction and non-fiction, Hustvedt examines the intersections of psychoanalysis with art, philosophy, neuroscience, psychiatry, and the history of medicine. Her work is noted for probing questions about identity, gender, selfhood, and perception, drawing upon the insights of psychoanalytic thinkers such as Freud, Lacan, Winnicott, Bion, and neuropsychoanalyst Solms. Rejecting the notion that psychoanalytic thinking is outdated or confined to the past, Hustvedt's writings resonate with both practitioners and general audiences and demonstrates the profound impact that psychoanalytic theory and practice continue to have on people's lives today.

ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action  (New York, USA)
Brilliantly curated and edited, ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action is a global and free digital forum and platform that has illuminated and forged new connections between psychoanalysis and the most pressing social, political, and cultural issues facing the contemporary world. Through its wide-ranging collection of essays, creative writing, memoirs, poetry, art, and community projects, ROOM places a psychoanalytic lens on contemporary challenges while embodying a uniquely new analytic modality for collective connection and societal change. Today ROOM serves as a valued tool for education and public scholarship, having evolved beyond its original format to produce films, books, events, and collaborative educational programming. Led by co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Hattie Myers, PhD, these initiatives further expand knowledge of psychoanalysis and highlight its potential applications across diverse fields.

"Calibán and Room spark scientific, political, and artistic dialogue and offer regional perspectives with a global ambition. The work manages to blur the artificial boundaries between pure and applied psychoanalysis and clinical and cultural fields that escalate the impact of The Sigourney Award and offer sounding boards to amplify a wide variety of perspectives," says Deutsch.

"The publications' resulting work along with exceptional achievements by Professor Amir and Dr. Hustvedt are illustrative of our founder's vision of psychoanalytic work that can benefit society as a whole," says Michael J. Harrington, JD, Attorney Co-Trustee of The Sigourney Award Trust.

Find summaries of The Sigourney Award-2025 recipients at www.sigourneyaward.org. Applications for The Sigourney Award-2026 will open on March 1, 2026. Follow on social at: Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn (@SigourneyAward); X (@sigourney_the); and Bluesky (@sigourneyaward.bsky.social).

About The Sigourney Award 

Established by Mary Sigourney in 1989, The Sigourney Award Trust, a wholly independent nonprofit organization, annually bestows awards as international recognition and reward for outstanding work that has advanced psychoanalytic principles. Since 1990, the Trust has honored the exceptional work of 153 recipients from 22 countries. Ms. Sigourney was a psychotherapist, publisher, and community activist who understood the potential for psychoanalysis to benefit humankind. Work honored by The Sigourney Award has significantly contributed to human affairs ranging from clinical psychoanalysis, artistic endeavors, and neuroscience to feminism and a spectrum of socio-political issues. 

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