Sloan-Menninger-Shevrin Award Ceremony 2025

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In honor of the special friendship of three men – Alfred Pritchard Sloan, William Clare Menninger and Karl Augustus Menninger – and in honor of Howard Shevrin, who died in Ann Arbor on January 18, 2018, annual prizes are awarded to an emerging researcher and an established researcher.

Saturday, 27 September 2025
5 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. (Central European Summer Time)

(in English, Réseau Francophone Psychanalyse et Neurosciences in collaboration with the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society)

Start time in selected time zones

Registration is now closed.

Here below is the recording of this event:

 

For submissions/nominations for the 2026 Sloan-Menninger-Shevrin Awards,
please click here.
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Programme

Introduction: Ariane Bazan

2022 winners
5.05-5.25 pm : Thomas Rabeyron (emerging award):
Transference between Neurosciences and Psychoanalysis
5.25-5.45 pm : Pierre Magistretti (established award with François Ansermet):
“Beyond the Pleasure Principle” revisited. Neuronal Plasticity, Homeostasis and Somatic States:
Towards a Dialogue between Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis.
30 minutes discussion

2023 winners
6.15-6.35 pm : Jessica Tran The (emerging award):
The Critical Periods of Cerebral Plasticity:
A Dialogue Between Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience.
6.35-6.55 pm : Cristina Alberini (established award):
Memory, Individuality, and Unconscious: A Biological Perspective
20 minutes discussion
7.15-7.30 pm : 15 minutes general discussion

 

Transference between Cognitive Neurosciences and Psychoanalysis. Thomas Rabeyron. Transference is a fundamental concept of analytical practices and theories, and its modeling can be enriched by insights from disciplines such as cognitive neurosciences. This presentation will explore how findings from cognitive neurosciences can offer a fresh perspective on understanding the dynamics of transference. Connections between transference and connectionist theories, the distinctions between implicit and explicit memory, and properties of self-organized networks like pattern completion will be examined. Additionally, studies in social cognition focusing on transference in controlled conditions and recent advancements in brain synchronization research using hyperscanning techniques will be discussed. 

Thomas Rabeyron is a a professor of clinical psychology at the university of Lyon 2 at the Centre de Recherche en Psychopathologie et Psychologie Clinique (UR653) and a junior member at the Institut Universitaire de France

Please click here to view Thomas Rabeyron’s presentation slides.

 

“Beyond the Pleasure Principle” revisited. Neuronal Plasticity, Homeostasis and Somatic States: Towards a Dialogue between Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis. Pierre Magistretti & François Ansermet. This presentation, arising from a long-standing dialogue between a neurobiologist, Pierre Magistretti and a psychoanalyst, François Ansermet, explores two fundamental mechanisms at the basis of subjectivity: neuronal plasticity and homeostatic processes. Plasticity is crucial for inscribing experience in the brain; yet, through trace reassociations, as shown by the phenomenon of reconsolidation, a discontinuity is established between lived experience and its neural inscription. It is precisely this discontinuity that contributes, we argue, to the emergence of  the subject and the unconscious. Homeostatic processes, in turn, primarily regulate somatic states (S), detected by the interoceptive system. These states become associated with representations (R) generated through plasticity, particularly within neuronal assemblies. The dynamic tension between R and S produces the drive, which seeks discharge to restore equilibrium. Thus, plasticity and homeostasis appear as two intertwined mechanisms, ceaselessly shaping the process of becoming of the subject. Nevertheless, Freud already recognized that while homeostatic regulation is highly effective at the somatic level, it fails at the mental level. This “failure” is vividly described in Beyond the Pleasure Principle and later in Civilization and its Discontents. Clinical experience led Freud to conclude that pleasure and unpleasure are not opposites but consubstantial, inseparably bound together. In this presentation, we will examine the possible neurobiological foundations of such a paradoxical failure of mental homeostasis, referring to the opponent process theory and to recent advances in affective neuroscience. By articulating psychoanalytic insights with neurobiological concepts, we aim to show how this dialogue not only illuminates the enigmas of pleasure but also opens new perspectives on the interrelation between drives, the unconscious, and the neurobiology of subjectivity.

Pierre Magistretti is Distinguished Professor and Vice-President for Research at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. He is Professor Emeritus at the Brain Mind Institute of EPFL and at the Departments of Psychiatry of the Universities of Lausanne and Geneva. He is a Foreign Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters. François Ansermet is Professor Emeritus of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne. He formerly directed the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Geneva and headed the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Geneva University Hospitals. He is also a practicing psychoanalyst and a member of the World Association of Psychoanalysis.
Please click here to view Pierre Magistretti’s presentation slides.

 

The Critical Periods of Cerebral Plasticity: A Dialogue Between Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience. Jessica Tran The. Critical periods of cerebral plasticity are windows of development during which the brain is especially sensitive to experience. Experiences occurring within these limited time frames can leave lasting structural and functional traces in the nervous system, while the same experiences outside them may have little effect. Studying these mechanisms provides a fruitful ground for dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience, particularly regarding the role of early experiences in the etiology of certain psychopathological conditions. Recent findings show that the opening and closing of critical periods are regulated by the maturation of parvalbumin-expressing basket cells, whose anomalies have been observed in patients with schizophrenia. Drawing on these results, I propose to revisit psychoanalytic theories of the etiology of psychosis through an interdisciplinary lens. Both psychoanalysis and neuroscience share the insight that experience leaves a trace—whether psychic or synaptic. From this perspective, our study develops the hypothesis of an “absence of trace” in psychosis, reconsidering the condition through the framework of the biological theory of critical periods. 

Jessica Tran The is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology at the University of Caen, within INSERM Unit 1077 “Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging of Human Memory,” where she teaches in the Master’s program in Clinical Psychodynamic Psychology.

 

Memory, Individuality, and Unconscious: a Biological Perspective. Cristina M. Alberini. Memory – the storage of acquired information – is an ensemble of complex processes that comprise the total of what we remember and give us the ability to learn and adapt from previous experiences. Memory is necessary for our survival, and its individual, unique qualities shape our identity. Psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic treatments work through memory processes. The neurobiological studies of these processes have revealed their highly dynamic nature. There are at least five levels of dynamic memory processing: consolidation, retrieval, reconsolidation, modulation, and development. My work has focused on these five dynamics in episodic types of memory and identified several underlying biological mechanisms. From this neurobiological knowledge, we can now better understand how memory processes operate and frame their contribution to psychoanalytic theories and therapy. The recent studies from my laboratory are particularly centered on understanding the phenomenon of infantile amnesia – the inability of adults to remember early-life episodic experiences. Our studies indicate that infant learning forms long-lasting cortical memory schemas, which stem from individual experiences, allowing subsequent learning and memories to be processed and function more efficiently. Thus, infantile learning and memory lay the groundwork for building an individualized lifelong capacity and efficiency of the learning and memory system by storing information in a somewhat implicit and schematic form. I propose that the infant’s schemas, which are the result of brain development based on individual experiences, provide the foundation for individuality. I also suggest that the Freudian unconscious is rooted in the implicit representation of early-life episodic memories. 

Cristina Alberini, PhD, is Julius Silver, Roslyn S. Silver & Enid Silver Winslow Professor at the Center for Neural Science, New York University. She trained in neurobiology with Eric Kandel at Columbia and has held faculty positions at Brown, Mount Sinai, and NYU; she is also a licensed psychoanalyst.

Please click here to view Cristina Alberini’s presentation slides.