The Student Award winners for 2004 have been named by the Society’s Awards Committee. This award is based on papers submitted to and judged by the Committee. The prizes are awarded to the students who, in the judgment of the Committee, show the greatest promise in the field of clinical social work.

The first place award of $400 goes to Jennifer Setzer, a 2nd year MSW student at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her paper described the brief treatment of a middle-school boy whose treatment was mandated by his school. She skillfully worked on developing trust with this reticent client by using creative strategies such as collage-making. Ms. Setzer facilitated better communication between mother and son, during combined sessions, enabling him to talk more easily in therapy about what really mattered to him, resulting in improved behavior.

Tricia Johnson of Durham won the second place award of $100. She is a 2nd year MSW student at Smith College and will receive her degree in August 2004. Her paper tells of her work with a high-achieving professional woman who was depressed and disconnected from her affect. Using object relations theory as a framework, Ms. Johnson illustrates the confluence of dynamic relationships in the client’s past and present which “continually activate her experience of depression, primarily manifest as a sense of depletion and discontentedness.”