IOPA Annual Research Lecture 2026

Chronic Depression and Early Trauma: The Contribution of Psychoanalytic Outcome Research

24 April 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM GMT (19:00 – 21:00 CET)
Organiser: Institute of Psychoanalysis – IOPA / British Psychoanalytical Society (incorporating the Institute of Psychoanalysis)
Online and in person event at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, W9 2BT, London.

Prof. Dr. Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber will begin by briefly outlining how, over a 16-year period, the approach to psychoanalytic research at the Sigmund Freud Institute was transformed from a critical theoretical focus to one that is more inclusive, clinically relevant and socially visible. She will illustrate attempts to incorporate the current emphasis on plurality in psychoanalytical research, including two randomized controlled psychoanalytic outcome studies, namely the LAC Study, which compares the effect of long-term psychoanalytic and cognitive-behaviour therapy on chronically depressed patients, and the ongoing MODE Study, which added neuroscientific outcome measures to the instruments used in the former research.

Speaker

Prof. Dr. Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber is a world-renowned Psychoanalyst and Research Scholar. She is a Training Analyst of the German Psychoanalytical Association (DPV/IPA), Emeritus Professor of Psychoanalysis, University of Kassel, and Senior Research Fellow at the Universitäts Medizin Mainz (Medical Centre, University of Mainz).

She has held a number of prestigious appointments, including Director of the Sigmund Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany (2001-2016), Chair of the Research Subcommittees for Clinical, Conceptual, Epistemological and Historical Research of the IPA (2001-2009), Vice Chair for Europe on the Research Board of the IPA (2010-2021), and Chair of the IPA Subcommittee for Migration and Refugees (2018/19), of which she continues to be a member.

She has received multiple distinguished honours in psychoanalysis, including the Mary Sigourney Award (2016), the Haskell Norman Prize for Excellence in Psychoanalysis (2017), the Robert S. Wallerstein Fellowship (2022-2027) and the IPA’s Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award (2023).

Her research fields are clinical and extra-clinical research in psychoanalysis, psychoanalytical developmental research, prevention studies, and interdisciplinary dialogue between psychoanalysis and literature, educational sciences and the neurosciences.