Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, M.D—1890-1957

On April 28, 1957 Frieda Fromm-Reichmann died of an acute coronary thrombosis at the age of 67 in her home at Chestnut Lodge, Rockville, Maryland. Her patients have lost a therapist whose refined empathy broadened the limits of human understanding, even of the most inaccessible schizophrenics. Her indefatigable patience and dedication reopened for many patients the tragically closed doors of human fellowship. Her students have lost an inspired and inspiring teacher, a courageous explorer in the field of psychoanalytic and psychiatric research. Her colleagues have lost in her a most generous friend, a charming hostess and guest with a congenial understanding of music, painting, and literature.

Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1890, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann graduated from medical school at Königsberg, Eastern Prussia, in 1913. During the First World War she assisted Professor Kurt Goldstein in the care of brain-injured soldiers, following him from Königsberg to Frankfurt-on-Main. In the early twenties she assisted Professor I. H. Schultz at his psychotherapeutic sanitarium "Weisser Hirsch" near Dresden, and was visiting physician at Professor Kraepelin's psychiatric clinic of the University of Munich. From 1923 to 1926 she received her psychoanalytic training in Munich and Berlin. After her membership in the German Psychoanalytic Association was established, she was in charge of a private psychoanalytic sanitarium in Heidelberg. Together with her husband—the psychoanalytically trained social psychologist Erich Fromm—from whom she separated later in life, she founded and taught at a psychoanalytic institute for South West Germany. With the outbreak of national socialism her stay in Germany was no longer safe. She first took refuge in Strasbourg, Alsace, where she was able to terminate the psychoanalytic treatment of her German patients. While her mother and one of her sisters immigrated to England and another sister to Palestine, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann found an