EARLY WOMEN PSYCHOANALYSTS
Welcome to a website dedicated to the remarkable yet inadequately remembered, overlooked, and erased women pioneers of psychoanalysis born before World War I, most of them Jewish.
Despite their substantial contributions to psychoanalytic thought, theory, and clinical practice, their work has often been devalued, marginalized, or written out of the canon through intersecting gendered and racial forms of power, institutional practices, and historical narratives that defined whose narratives counted, and why – and whose did not.
This site highlights courses, publications, and events that honor and critically engage with their legacy. Join us in uncovering the stories of these women who shaped the field of psychoanalysis and continue to inspire future generations. Together, let’s restore their voices and contributions to the historical record and carry them forward for the future generations.
LIVE Rendering Unconscious Podcast
with Klara Naszkowska, Candice Dumas, Ana Tomčić, Håvard Friis Nilsen, and Dóra Szabó
hosted by Vanessa Sinclair, Rendering Unconscious
May 20, 2026
18:00 Stockholm (12PM NYC/ 9AM San Francisco/ 5PM London/ 19:00 Beirut) for 2.5 hours.
There will be time for audience Q&A/ discussion.
Klara Naszkowska, editor of the collection, will open the program with an overview of the volume, its chapters, and the themes that connect them, and will introduce the speakers. Presentations include Candice Dumas on Margarethe Hilferding, Ana Tomčić on Sabina Spielrein, Håvard Friis Nilsen on Nic Waal, and Dóra Szabó on Erzsébet Farkas. Together, these talks invite us to revisit psychoanalysis’ origins—and to recognize the pioneering thinkers whose contributions deserve far wider recognition.
Every paid subscriber at Rendering Unconscious Podcast and RU Center for Psychoanalysis will receive the zoom link to attend this event live and the recording of the event will be posted at both Substacks.
Roundtable: Debate around the anthology Early Women Psychoanalysts: History, Biography, and Contemporary Relevance
with Klara Naszkowska, Ana Tomčić, and Richard Simanke
hosted by Rede de Pesquisa em História e Filosofia dos Saberes Psy e das Ciências Humanas (Rede PhilPsyCh), Brazil
2025
Gabriel Brownstein, "The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim: Psychoanalysis in German-Jewish History"
with Abby Kluchin
hosted by the Leo Baeck Institute, New York
2025
Klara Naszkowska, "Early Women Psychoanalysts: A Story of Sabina Spielrein"
hosted by Magda Teter, at Jewish Studies, Fordham University
2024
Elena Bravo Ceniceros & Jorge Reitter, "Pioneers of Psychoanalysis (Fundamental contributions of women in psychoanalysis)" (in Spanish)
hosted by Asociación Libre
2024
Klara Naszkowska, "Jewish Female Mental Health Professionals between Poland, the Nazis, and America"
hosted by the Harriman Institute at Columbia University
2023
Klara Naszkowska, “The Re-History of the Jewish New Women: Mental-Health Professionals between Poland, the Nazis, and America”
II Symposium on the History and Philosophy of Psychology
hosted by Federal University of Juiz de Fora
Discussant: Fátima Caropreso
Moderator: Richard Theisen Simanke
2022
Klara Naszkowska, "Jewish Identities of Women Psychoanalysts Who Fled Nazi Europe to the United States"
hosted by Union Theological Seminary (with Jewish Theological Seminary)
2022
4th Session of the Seminar: “Rethinking Psychoanalysis in Central Europe. Interdisciplinary and Transnational Perspectives” "Jewish Women in Psychoanalysis: Central-European Careers and Emigrations"
with Klara Naszkowska and Anna Borgos
hosted by CEFRES (French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences), Prague
Coordinator: Agnieszka Sobolewska
Discussants: Clara Royer, Mateusz Chmurski, and Mathieu Lericq
2022
Scientific Meeting: "Women Psychoanalysts at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute,
1911-1961"
with Helene Keable, Patricia Nachman, Mary Kay O'Neil, and Nellie L. Thompson
2014