An annual online lecture featuring distinguished guest speakers in the fields of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
2024 Otto Kernberg: Conflict and Controversy in the Field of Psychoanalytic Techniques
Dr. Kernberg’s lecture will be hosted by the International Psychotherapy Institute via Zoom on Friday Sept 20, 2024 from 12:00pm-1:30pm US Eastern Time.
The Scharff Award Lecture is free to registered participants, thanks to the generosity of Jill and David Scharff. Tickets are limited, and registration is required.
Otto Kernberg, M.D.
Dr. Kernberg is world renowned for his seminal work on borderline and narcissistic personality disorders, providing a theory of the precursors of these disorders as well as therapeutic methods for treating these patients using applied psychoanalysis. He developed Transference-Focused Psychotherapy, a novel and useful framework for coordinating personality disorders along dimensions of structural organization and severity. In addition, his work has been central in integrating postwar ego psychology with Kleinian and other object relations and perspectives. His integrative writing was central to the development of modern object relations, a theory of mind that is perhaps the theory most widely accepted among modern psychoanalysts. He has written about object relations, character pathology, falling in love, as well as about problems in psychoanalytic education.
Otto F. Kernberg, M.D., F.A.P.A., is past Director and Senior Consultant of the Personality Disorders Institute at The New York Presbyterian Hospital, Westchester Division and Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Dr. Kernberg is a Past-President of the International Psychoanalytic Association. He is also Training and Supervising Analyst of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research.
In the past, Dr. Kernberg served as Director of the C.F. Menninger Memorial Hospital, Supervising and Training Analyst of the Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis, and Director of the Psychotherapy Research Project of the Menninger Foundation. Later, he was Director of the General Clinical Service of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. From 1976 to 1995 he was Associate Chairman and Medical Director of The New York HospitalCornell Medical Center, Westchester Division. He was Book Editor of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association from 1977-1993. He is the author of many books.
Dr.Kernberg was awarded the l972 Heinz Hartmann Award of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Society, the l975 Edward A. Strecker Award from the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, the l98l George E. Daniels Merit Award of the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine, the l982 William F. Schonfeld Memorial Award of the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, the 1986 Van Gieson Award from the New York State Psychiatric Institute, the 1987 and 1996 Teacher of the Year Award from The New York HospitalCornell Medical Center, Westchester Division. He was elected to membership of the Society of Scholars of the Johns Hopkins University in 1992. He received the 1993 I. Arthur Marshall Distinguished Alumnus Award, Menninger Alumni Association, The Menninger Foundation, the 1993 Presidential Award for Leadership in Psychiatry from the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems, and the Distinguished Service Award from the American Psychiatric Association in 1995. He was elected Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1998, and received the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, in 1999. In 2007 he received the Golden Medal of Honor to the City of Vienna, and the Thomas William Salmon Medal from the New York Academy of Medicine, New York, New York.
2021 Sigourney Award Recipients: Jill Savege Scharff and David Scharff
The Sigourney Award is the highest distinction in the field of psychoanalysis. Founded by Mary Sigourney, the award honors innovative advancement of psychoanalytic thought and practice around the world. Eligibility criteria include initiatives that (1) heighten the visibility of the field of psychoanalysis and its applications to other disciplines; (2) interest young people in studying psychoanalysis; and (3) encompass diversity, equity, and inclusion.
David and Jill Scharff are the first couple to receive the Sigourney Award together in the same year. The Scharffs earned the award in recognition of their exceptional contributions as pioneers of teleanalysis and training in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and couple and family therapy on an international scale. For further information about the Sigourney Award and past preeminent award recipients, you may visit the Sigourney website at www.sigourneyaward.org.
Annual Lecture
Jill and David Scharff donated to IPI the financial award that accompanies the Sigourney prize in acknowledgement of their gratitude to IPI and all the students, faculty and program partners who worked with them to build an international psychoanalytic distance learning community. Specifically, the Scharffs have requested that IPI use their prize money to create a fund for an IPI annual distinguished guest lecture, an online event to reflect their pioneering devotion to teleanalysis and distance learning on a domestic and international scale.
Previous Scharff Award Lecturers
2023 Anne Alvarez: Destruction, Distraction, Deliverance - Can we change the subject?
IPI is excited to honor Anne Alvarez as the inaugural Scharff Award keynote speaker. Anne is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist, and retired co-convener of the Autism Service, Child and Family Department at the Tavistock Clinic, London, where she still teaches. She is author of numerous publications including “Live Company: Psychotherapy with Autistic, Borderline, Deprived and Abused Children.” “Being Alive: Building on the Work of Anne Alvarez” was edited by Judith Edwards in Anne’s honor. She was visiting professor at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society in November 2005 and she is an honorary member of the Psychoanalytic Centre of California. Her latest book is titled, “The Thinking Heart: Three Levels of Psychoanalytic Therapy with Disturbed Children.”
Dr. Alvarez’s lecture will be hosted by the International Psychotherapy Institute via Zoom on Friday Sept 29, 2023 from 12:30pm-2:00pm US Eastern Time. The Scharff Award Lecture is free to registered participants, thanks to the generosity of Jill and David Scharff. Registration is required.