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.
Second International Conference on Early Women Psychoanalysts
April 10–11, 2027 | Online
The International Association for Spielrein Studies invites proposals for the second international conference dedicated to early women psychoanalysts who engaged with psychoanalysis before the end of World War II (1945). The conference will be held online on April 10–11, 2027.
Call for Papers:
Scope and Guiding Vision
• This conference focuses to lesser-known figures whose lives and work remain under-researched and under-published, rather than widely studied individuals, such as Anna Freud or Melanie Klein.
• We welcome work on women who engaged with psychoanalysis – not only trained psychoanalysts, but also educators, social activists, social scientists, and others who drew on psychoanalytic ideas in their work.
• We encourage proposals that illuminate both individual lives and intellectual contributions, as well as the wider historical shifts and circumstances that shaped these women’s careers, networks, migrations, institutional roles, and legacies.
• Although psychoanalysis emerged in Europe and some submissions may naturally focus on European figures, the conference is explicitly international in scope. We welcome scholarship that moves beyond Eurocentric frameworks and expands the historical record by foregrounding women psychoanalysts and related pioneers across diverse regions, languages, and cultural contexts.
Selected contributions will be considered for inclusion in a second edited volume associated with the Early Women Psychoanalysts project, edited by Klara Naszkowska.
Suggested Themes
We welcome proposals from scholars working in the history of psychoanalysis, cultural history, women’s and gender studies, Jewish studies, migration and diaspora studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies, education, sociology, anthropology, literary studies, and related fields.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
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Rediscovered figures, overlooked publications, or newly available archives
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Beyond Europe: early women psychoanalytic thinkers and practitioners in Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, Oceania, and transnational communities
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Social and political contexts that shaped careers and reception
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War, displacement, migration, professional exclusion, and institutional gatekeeping
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Legal, educational, and medical structures affecting women’s participation and authority
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The politics of memory: why some voices were canonized and others erased
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Group portraits and broad shifts: collective biographies, cohorts, circles, clinics, schools, and associations
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Contemporary relevance and ethical historiography
Presentation Formats
• Individual papers (20–30 minutes)
• Panels
• Roundtables or conversations
Submission Guidelines
Please submit the following:
1. Title or working title
2. Abstract (200–300 words)
3. Five to seven keywords
4. A short bio (100 words)
Submission deadline: February 1, 2027
Submission email: spielrein@spielreinassociation.org
Registration
Free for students
$15 for all other participants (additional donations are welcome)
