Jay S. Kwawer, Ph.D.

The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City has announced the selection of Jay S. Kwawer, Ph.D. as its next Director. His four-year term of office will begin in July 2008.

Dr. Kwawer is the fifth Director of the White Institute since its founding in 1943 by a group of eminent psychoanalysts, including Harry Stack Sullivan, Erich Fromm, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, and Clara Thompson, who served as the Institute’s first Director. The Institute has been the leading proponent of interpersonal psychoanalysis, a point of view based on the conviction that social and cultural factors shape personality development, and emphasizing the human qualities of the psychoanalytic relationship as a factor in therapeutic change.

Dr. Kwawer affirms a commitment to the White Institute’s historical tradition of excellence in providing professional training and affordable psychoanalytically-oriented clinical service. “Psychoanalysts,” he reflects, “are uniquely trained, among contemporary mental health professionals, to listen attentively and to respond with a humane, personal, compassionate presence.” The White Institute’s award-winning clinical services to the community, he notes, embody the spirit of excellence and quality care that has historically been the Institute’s signature.

In announcing the Board of Trustees’ decision to appoint Dr. Kwawer as Institute Director, Dr. Charles C. Harrington, Board President, cited his “energy and dedication” and “his involvement with the larger psychoanalytic world,” and noted Dr. Kwawer’s “optimism about White being able to remain at the intellectual forefront of psychoanalysis in today’s society.”

Dr. Kwawer, a 1966 graduate of Columbia College, earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from New York University in 1971. New York University honored his outstanding achievements in psychology in 1973 with the Brian E. Tomlinson Memorial Award, given every three years by the clinical psychology doctoral program to an outstanding graduate. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Clinical Psychology at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts from 1971-1973 and completed his training in psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute, which awarded him a Certificate in Psychoanalysis in 1977.

He has been a faculty member at the White Institute for almost thirty years, as well as a Training and Supervising Analyst, a member of its Council of Fellows, and, since 2001, has served as Director of Clinical Education. In 2003, the White Institute presented him with the Edith Seltzer Alt Distinguished Service Award “in recognition of extraordinary contributions, over many years, to the Council of Fellows, to the White Institute, and to the professional community.”

His co-edited volume, Borderline Phenomena and the Rorschach Test, has remained in print for almost thirty years, during which it has become a modern classic in the area of psychoanalytic interpretation and diagnostic projective testing. Dr. Kwawer is also the author of numerous papers published in professional journals.

In addition to his extensive involvement with the White Institute, Dr. Kwawer is Clinical Professor of Psychology in New York University’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, and he maintains a private clinical practice of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and consultation with individuals and couples on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He is a member of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Psychoanalysis and its Society of Clinical Psychology, and he co-chairs a Task Force on Training Models of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Board on Professional Standards. He has recently been appointed Guest Faculty at the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Kwawer is licensed to practice psychology in New York and Massachusetts.


The William Alanson White Institute is an internationally-renowned psychoanalytic center providing postdoctoral training in psychoanalysis and postgraduate training in related fields, including child and adolescent psychotherapy and organizational consultation, as well as offering a range of low-cost therapeutic services through its active community clinic. In 2001, the White Institute’s Clinical Services were presented with the American Psychoanalytic Association’s first Community Clinic of the Year Award, and in 2003, the White Institute received the prestigious Mary S. Sigourney Award, in recognition of the Institute’s distinguished contributions to the field of psychoanalysis.