Congratulations to Leigh Money, London-based Jungian analyst and SAP member, who is the recipient of both the prestigious Michael Fordham Prize 2024 and 2024 Gradiva Award for her paper “Labels and the Self: Identity Labels as Scaffold”. The Gradiva award was for the best theoretical article published in 2024.
Imagine scaffolding wrapped around a house, noisy with builders hammering away, making space to add a new floor. That’s exactly the image Leigh Money uses to explore how identity labels-like “neurodiverse,” “genderfluid,” or “highly sensitive”-function in our psyches. These labels aren’t just sticky tags; they’re scaffolds that help us build, protect, and sometimes defend our evolving sense of self.
The article artfully combines psychological theory with compassionate clinical insights, highlighting several distinct roles labels play: acting as mirrors that reflect unmet emotional needs, creative defenses against overwhelming realities, playful transitional objects, containers holding emotions not yet fully understood, aspirational affirmations, and even collective dream symbols from our shared psychic landscape. By examining labels through these lenses, Money offers profound reflections on how individuals navigate their inner worlds and external identities.
Drawing from rich clinical vignettes, the paper demonstrates that labels—while sometimes limiting—can also empower individuals to articulate previously ineffable experiences, ultimately guiding them toward deeper self-awareness and psychological resilience. Money’s thoughtful and nuanced analysis has rightfully earned the recognition of prestigious awards, cementing the article’s place as both an innovative and humane contribution to analytical psychology.
The Gradiva Awards, presented annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP), honor outstanding contributions to psychoanalysis through literature, art, and media.