GRADUATE IS FIRST WOMAN IN UNITED STATES TO RECEIVE PRESTIGIOUS AWARD IN PSYCHOANALYSIS
09 May 2019
Rosemary Marshall Balsam, MB Bch BAO, 1963, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at Yale University, has been awarded the Mary S. Sigourney Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and is the first woman in the United States to receive the award.
Rosemary studied in Belfast, Edinburgh, London and in the United States of America, and is regarded as a significant peer in psychoanalysis and staff psychiatrist at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. She is also the author of two books; Becoming a Psychotherapist: A Clinical Primer by Rosemary Marshall Balsam (1984) and Women's Bodies in Psychoanalysis (2012).
Rosemary graduated from the (then) Medical School at Queen's University with an MB, Bch, BAO in 1963. She then completed her houseman year at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and Windsor House, Belfast City Hospital in psychiatry.
She left for Yale University in Connecticut just after completing a MRCP in Edinburgh, in 1967, and FRCPsych in London, and has been living in the United States ever since, as an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Yale Medical School.
At the end of 2018, Rosemary received her award in psychoanalysis from the Sigourney Award Trust for her pioneering research into the female body and women in psychoanalytical theory and book Women’s Body in Psychoanalysis, citing that "her work is radical because it establishes the female body as a missing component of psychoanalytic theory". She has conducted extensive research into the impact of female biological body awareness in her field and addresses these complexities of gender and, more specifically, erotica, pleasures, violence, development, body image, and intergenerational traumas in female psychoanalysis.
The Sigourney Award was created by Mary Sigourney (1927 – 1988) a philanthropist who funded research projects in psychoanalysis and more specifically research in this field, such as in anthropology and sociology. She created the award to encourage new thought in the field for the future, and allowed the recipients of the award to use the funds however they saw fit, rather than to fund specific results or projects. The award will be presented to Rosemary presented in July, 2019, at the QE II Centre in London, at the meeting of the International Psychoanalytic Association.
Rosemary said she was honoured to receive such a prestigious international award, and "of course, comes to Belfast every year to see family and friends."
Rosemary is a Staff Psychiatrist at Yale and works in Yale University Student Mental Health and Counselling. She is also a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Read the announcement of the award here: https://www.sigourneyaward.org/work/2019/1/25/dr-rosemary-balsam-2018
General enquiries about this news story can be directed to Gerry Power, Communications Officer, Development and Alumni Relations Office at Queen’s; tel: +44 (0)28 9097 5321.
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