A Winning Perspective

Seidenberg Prize goes to Stephanie Gangemi

BY MEGAN RUBINER ZINN

Doctoral student Stephanie Gangemi has won top honors in the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute’s Seidenberg Prize competition for her paper “Are They Mental Health or Behavioral: Toward Object Relations Translation for Corrections Officers.”

Gangemi had been writing the paper for her comprehensive exam when she saw the institute’s call for papers on psychoanalytic perspectives on problems of incarceration. The competition asked writers to address how psychoanalysis can help inform ways of thinking about issues between guards and inmates in the criminal justice system. Gangemi had been feeling stalled on her paper and the call motivated her to finish.

Gangemi looks at the dynamics of victimization on both sides. “My basic thesis was that psychoanalysis can and should be used for us to help guards, and that there’s sort of a mutual process of traumatization and exposure to constant stressors and that process is interactive once they’re there.”

Gangemi attended the June meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association to receive the award of $15,000. She also won a stipend to present the paper at a conference in the coming year.

Having finished her coursework, Gangemi is at the beginning stages of her dissertation research. She recently left her position at the El Paso County Jail in Colorado, where she had worked for nine years, and has started a private practice, focusing primarily on individuals with complicated trauma issues or dealing with personality disorders. She is also teaching social work in Newman University’s M.S.W. program at its satellite campus in Colorado Springs.

“My education at Smith has prepared me far beyond my expectations for continuing this very important work in the criminal justice system,” Gangemi said. The prize has also made her feel even more empowered in her work: “I feel tremendously honored and inspired and excited to put the ideas into action.” ◆