HELENE DEUTSCH (1884-1982)

             Helene Deutsch was born and raised in Poland. Impeded in her education as a Jewish woman in Poland, she traveled to Vienna for her university and medical education.  Studying in Munich with Emil Kraepelin, she met, and then married Felix Deutsch in 1912.  In 1918, she had a year of personal analysis with Sigmund Freud. She quickly became an outstanding supervisor and teacher.  She directed the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute from 1924 until her emigration to Boston (USA) in 1935. A highly original and creative thinker, she was an important influence in European and American psychoanalysis. Always interested in the development and conflicts of women, she published her two volume Psychology of Women (1944-45). She was a pioneer in her writing on pregnancy and motherhood.  However, her controversial views on female masochism and narcissism are now regarded as antiquated.   Her many enduring and important contributions to the psychoanalytic literature include her papers on countertransference and the “as if personality”.

Harold P. Blum, M.D.

Executive Director, Sigmund Freud Archives