Frieda Fromm-Reichmann

Frieda Fromm-Reichmann was born on October 23, 1889 in Karlsruhe, Germany and died of a heart attack on April 28, 1957 at age 67 in Rockville, Maryland. She was a German psychiatrist and contemporary of Sigmund Freud who emigrated to America during World War II.

Fromm-Reichmann was born to Adolf and Klara Reichmann in Karlsruhe, German Empire. She was raised in a middle-class Orthodox Jewish family and was the oldest of three daughters. She came from a large, supportive and impactful family. Her great grandfather (on her father's side) had 93 grandchildren and her extended family played an important role in her life. Her mother was part of a group that established a preparatory school for girls in 1908 to prepare them for going off to university. One of her aunts was instrumental in the establishment of kindergartens in Germany and one of her uncles, who owned the bank her father worked at, financed Frieda's college education.

Because Adolf Reichmann had no sons, Frieda was granted privileges other Orthodox Jewish women were not allowed. Her mother, who was trained as a teacher, strongly encouraged higher education for women. Her father, who was a merchant and bank director, encouraged her to go to medical school and become a doctor. Frieda attended medical school in Königsberg in 1908. She was one of the first women to study medicine. She received her medical degree in 1913 and began a residency in neurology studying brain injuries with Kurt Goldstein, a neurologist and psychiatrist. During World War I she was a Major in the German Army and ran a clinic for brain-injured German soldiers. She worked under Kurt Goldstein, who was her most influential teacher and mentor. Her work led to a better understanding of the physiology and pathology of brain functions. She studied the soldiers' anxieties and panic issues and this knowledge was later applied to her work with her clients diagnosed with schizophrenia. She learned two important principles: the impact of brain trauma on healthy men and the adaptive capacity of the brain. She also studied neurology and dementia praecox.

Fromm-Reichmann continued to have an interest in psychiatry and discovered Freud's writings. Her approach to treatment emerged from her research with Kurt Goldstein. To further her psychotherapy skills, she pursued psychoanalytic training at the Berlin Institute. Her understanding of anxiety in soldiers helped her understand schizophrenia later and was the "hallmark of her life's work". She used "whatever worked with each individual" and relied "on the patients own inherent capacity for healing to guide the treatment". She also recognized the role of trauma in mental illness and started to understand the dynamics of the therapeutic relationship.

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