Benigna Gerisch

Benigna Gerisch is a qualified psychologist, systemic family therapist, psychological psychotherapist, and psychoanalyst (DPV/IPA). She studied psychology and literary studies in Hamburg and worked from 1990 to 2010 as a research associate and psychotherapist at the Suicide Prevention Therapy Center of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. She earned her doctorate and habilitation for research on suicidality among women and received the German Psychoanalytic Association’s early-career award in 1998. From 2009, she taught clinical psychology and psychoanalysis at the International Psychoanalytic University Berlin. Her research has focused on suicidality, gender differences, psychoanalytic concepts of the body, and self-destructive bodily practices.