Kate Friedlaender

It was with deep regret that members of the British Psycho-Analytical Society heard of the death of Dr. Kate Friedlaender, who died at her home in London on February 20, 1949, at the early age of forty-six.

Kate Frankl, this was her maiden name, was born in Innsbruck in Tyrol where she qualified in 1926 as a Doctor of Medicine. Soon after-wards she settled in Berlin and she specialized at Professor Bonhoeffer's Clinic in Mental and Nervous Diseases. She published two neuro-psychiatric papers which indicate that although still at the beginning of her career, she had a deep interest in the psychological and sociological aspect of mental and nervous diseases. She also worked as a psychiatrist at the Juvenile Court in Berlin.

She trained as a psycho-analyst at the Berlin Institute and read her membership paper there in March, 1933, a paper entitled 'The Somatic Origin of Anxiety'. The following year she read a paper on 'The Biological Basis of Freud's Theory on Anxiety' on the occasion of the 13th International Congress of Psycho-Analysis in Luzern.

She emigrated to London in 1933 and became at first an Associate, later a full member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society. In 1938 she delivered her first series of lectures to the students of the British Institute of Psycho-Analysis on the Theory of Sex. In the same year she read a paper 'On the Longing to Die' at the International Congress in Paris. In the years which followed she contributed to many discussions in the British Society and read several original papers which have been published in various journals.

During the war years she worked still harder and was preparing to join in the post-war activities of British psychiatry. The range and intensity of her work were astonishing, even to her friends. The ease with which she carried out her duties and commitments was an inspiration to her colleagues, associates and students. Her most fruitful and lasting achievements have been in the application of psycho-an