2007 Awardees

Special Award Joseph D. Lichtenberg, M.D. For Early Support to Mary Ainsworth and for Wise Clinically Informed Commentary at the Interface Between Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis

Joseph Lichtenberg is a distinguished contributor to psychoanalytic theory and therapy. His classic book, Psychoanalysis and Motivation (The Analytic Press, 1989) provides an original post ego-psychology alternative to traditional drive theory. Built upon a long career in practice and a careful survey of modern research on biopsychology and infant socio-emotional development, the book makes the important point that attachment is only one of several different motivational systems that might be central in a particular clinical case.

Prior to her appointment faculty appointment at At Johns Hopkins University, Mary Ainsworth worked under Dr. Lichtenberg's supervision as a psychodiagnostician at the Sheppard-Pratt Hospital in Baltimore. This award recognizes especially the friendship and support Dr. Lichtenberg extended to Mary Ainsworth in an era when women found little in the way of encouragement or loyal support in professional settings. These were some of the happiest years of Mary's life and they played a major role in in her later work in her becoming the Mary Ainsworth we all knew and loved.