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.
Klara Naszkowska, Clara Happel, Judaism, and Psychoanalysis in America: Memory, History, and Interpretation. Routledge [2027].
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Support the project here: https://gofund.me/ee92be077
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Janka Kormos, The Life and Work of Judith S. Kestenberg: The Body on Trial. Routledge [2026]