Holmes Fellowship

Dorothy E. Holmes Fellowship

The Dorothy E. Holmes Fellowship supports broad and deep psychoanalytic understanding to promote a more just society and relieve personal suffering. Fellowship–supported research projects will advance strategies to ameliorate the psychic burden experienced by those holding oppressed identities, i.e., race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, age, ability, and/or other identity markers. Applicants are invited to propose projects related to identity, oppression, and/or intersectionality in treatment and supervisory relationships, classrooms, professional groups, academia, or the larger community. 

This Fellowship is made possible thanks to a generous donation from Sandra and Steve Bennett.

Holmes Fellowship Details

  • Fellows will receive a $5,000 stipend, part of which may be used for expenses such as professional consultation, outside services, travel, or materials required to complete their project. 
  • Fellows will serve for a minimum of one calendar year and a maximum of three consecutive years.  
  • While engaged in the Fellowship, each recipient will commit to:
    • Attending regular meetings with an assigned PCC project advisor 
    • Preparing quarterly project reports 
    • Preparing a final project report 
    • Attending regular meetings with other Holmes fellows and faculty and sharing the progress and outcomes of Fellowship work with PCC members, community organizations, and other audiences as appropriate to the project
  • This merit-based fellowship is open to all members of the learning or teaching community of the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas (PCC). Joint proposals from faculty and student partners will also be considered. 
  • Proposals may address any of a broad range of domains including (but not limited to) clinical, academic, policy, or public advocacy, through controlled experimental or clinical studies, curriculum development, demonstration projects, community involvement, or other initiatives. 
  • All applicants must reside in either North or South Carolina. 
  • All clinical applicants must practice in either North or South Carolina. 

Fellows will be selected based on demonstrated accomplishment and well-conceived and feasible proposals which address the Fellowship objective and are likely to produce sustainable results. 

  • Applicants will submit a letter of intent no longer than two pages, double spaced, expressing their interest in the program. 
  • Applicants will be invited to a voluntary informational meeting four months prior to submitting a final proposal. 
  • The proposal shall be submitted as a single PDF file containing: 
    • A resume 
    • A project proposal of no longer than five pages, double-spaced, 12-pt font, including:
    • A rationale for the proposed project including:
      • Articulation of the problem 
      • Brief literature review in support of the project/plan 
      • Consideration of the project’s feasibility and sustainability 
      • A description of the project’s desired impact 
      • A clear set of objectives, each with measurable outcomes that will define success. 
      • Description of methodology. 
      • The project budget. 
      • A timeline for implementation and completion. 
    • The names of two supporters with sufficient familiarity with the applicant and expertise in the proposed area of work to comment on the applicant’s ability to complete the proposed project. 
  • March 31: Letters of intent due 
  • Mid-May: Information meeting for applicants 
  • September 30: Final proposal due  
  • November 1: Award announced 

Letters of intent are due March 31, 2025. For more information, please contact PCC Executive Director Vann Pearsall.  

About Dr. Holmes

Dorothy Evans Holmes, PhD, is a Teaching, Training, and Supervising Analyst in the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas, Professor and PsyD Program Director Emerita at the George Washington University, and Teaching, Training and Supervising Analyst Emerita at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. She is widely published on the psychoanalysis of race and gender and currently interrogates dynamic and institutional factors that impede the psychoanalytic examination of intersectionality. Her most recent publications are Neutrality is not neutral (2022) in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 70:317-322; and Getting to where we need to get: A meaningful step towards understanding and remedying white privilege (2023) in Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 32(6):639-644. Dr. Holmes served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and now serves on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. She is the eponymous Chair of the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis.