THE PAUL GRAVES MYERSON AWARD
“The Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis grants the Paul Graves Myerson Award to a member of the MIP community for outstanding contributions to the growth of our Institute or psychoanalysis in general. Dr. Myerson’s forthright and unstinting commitment to MIP in its founding days was consistent with the nature of his intellectual contributions to the field of psychoanalysis. His courage, vision, openness to ideas, and plainspoken voice transcended limitations and constraints on the freedom of institutional and intellectual growth. In this spirit, MIP continues to honor noteworthy contributions to our community and our field with the Paul Graves Myerson Award.”
The Paul Graves Myerson Award was established in 2001. Nominees are put forward by the co-chair group at MIP and voted on by this same group. Past recipients include: Mary Loughlin, Susan Rowley, Mal Slavin, Stuart Pizer, Andy Morrison, Gerry Stechler, Ken Reich, and Jaine Darwin.
The recipient of tonight’s award received Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Clinical and School Psychology from the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University. She also holds a M.Ed. from the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.
She began her professional career as the health and sexuality counselor at the Tufts University Women’s Center. There she met one of her early mentors, Jonathan Slavin, who invited her to intern at the Tufts Counseling Center and encouraged her to pursue doctoral level study. Her longstanding interest in gender and sexuality surfaced as she was pivotal in integrating these issues into the work of the Counseling Center.
Her interest in psychoanalysis and her talent for speaking up in a way that allows others to follow her lead, and in a way that facilitates completion of the task at hand, were evident early on in her professional development: for example, as a graduate student she pushed the faculty at Adelphi to bring the ideas of two young and upcoming feminist theorists, Nancy Chodorow and Jessica Benjamin, into the curriculum. A very gifted graduate student in the same internship at Beth Israel Hospital from 1983-1985, Lynne Layton, remembers our recipient as “definitely an early feminist voice in psychoanalysis.” Several years later tonight’s recipient pushed hard again to establish and protect the importance of a gender course in the original drafting of the curriculum at MIP.
Another fellow intern at Beth Israel, David Sloan-Rossiter, remembers her warm generosity, and thoughtfulness as they sat in seminars together listening to instructors such as George Fishman, Bennett Simon, and Paul Graves Russell.
She has been in private practice in Cambridge since 1986. She was on the organizing committee of the 1989 Spring Meeting of Divison 39 of the American Psychological Association held here in Boston, an event that coincided with the settlement of the lawsuit against the American Psychoanalytic. She taught and supervised at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for over 20 years, and has consulted to an art therapy program for at-risk adolescent girls through the Arts Incentive Program at the United South End Settlement House.
She’s a founding member of MIP who actively participated in the organization of our institute. She is a valued member of the faculty and contributed to the creation of the Faculty Development Meeting as co-chair of the Curriculum Committee.
Past Presidents have looked to her when they need someone with patience, someone who can pay careful attention to detail, while holding in mind the larger picture, combined with a sensitivity to individual feeling, and the persistence and commitment to get the job done. These qualities have resulted in her co-chairing the Curriculum Committee, the Advanced Candidate Review Task Force, and currently the Postgraduate Fellowship Program. She has contributed as a member to the Training Committee and the original Education Committee at MIP. She has served on the Board of Directors as Treasurer, and currently holds her second term as a Director on the Board.
She has written and presented on a variety of psychoanalytic subjects including unconscious communication, sibling transferences, gender, and sexuality.
And finally, last year when we said good-by to our longtime institute administrator, Mary Loughlin, tonight’s recipient:
In her gracious and articulate way
She so expressed our feeling that day
And she did so in rhyme!
Now – tonight, it is her time.
Please join me in awarding the 2009 Paul Graves Myerson Award to Dr. Linda Luz-Alterman.
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