Psychoanalyst, Jew, Woman, Wife, Mother, Emigrant

Abstract

At least seventy-two first- and second-generation women psychoanalysts emigrated to the United States as Nazism came to dominate Europe. There – largely in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich – from the early 1900s to the beginning of the Second World War, they had been at the forefront of the psychoanalytic movement; after emigrating, they were decisive in shaping the development of Freudian theory and practice in the US. Their contributions notwithstanding, today they are neglected and at risk of being marginalised or falling into oblivion. Using both historical materials and personal-history documents, including memoirs, interviews, correspondence and personal communications, this article revives and reconstructs the individual and professional biographies of eight first-generation analysts – Frances Deri, Helene Deutsch, Salomea Gutmann-Isakower, Clara Happel, Karen Horney, Flora Kraus, Mira Oberholzer-Gincburg and Christine Olden – and focuses on their complex multiple identities as professional women (the Jewish New Women of their milieu), pioneers of psychoanalysis, Jews, refugees, German-speaking emigrants, mothers and more.