Wright Institute Commencement Held on Sunday, June 8, 2014

Fifty-eight students graduating with doctoral degrees from the Wright Institute in the past academic year were honored at the Commencement Ceremony on Sunday, June 8, 2014. Following the welcome and opening remarks from President Peter Dybwad, JD, and Dean Gilbert Newman, PhD, respectively, the commencement address was delivered by Mardi Horowitz, MD.

Dr. Horowitz is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. He is certified in Psychoanalysis by the American Psychoanalytic Association and is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. A prolific author, he is past president of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and the Society for Psychotherapy Research.

Distinguished dissertation awards were given to three students at Commencement: The Wright Institute Outstanding Dissertation Award conferred for excellence in any area of study; the Richard Alan Smith Scholar's Award in the areas of consciousness, cross-cultural and minority concerns, and the origins, evolution, and role of language; and the Saul Siegel Dissertation Award in the area of clinical innovation.

Maya Elena Bruhns earned the Outstanding Dissertation Award for her work, "From Victim to Survivor: A Mixed Methods Investigation of the Process of Exiting and Healing from Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Childhood." Emmanuel Alberto Zamora received the Richard Alan Smith Scholar's Award for his dissertation entitled "Effects of a Multiracial Identity Intervention on Perceived Cultural Competence and Attitudes Toward Professional Psychological Help." Shlomit Bruria Kirsch received the Saul Siegel Award for her dissertation on "An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis of the Relationship Between Trauma and Culture in the Jewish Israeli Population."