Introduction to Fromm-Reichmann's “Female Psychosexuality” and “Jewish Food Rituals”

Frieda Fromm-Reichmann arrived at Chestnut Lodge in the summer of 1935. She was 45 years old. Her former husband, Erich Fromm, 10 years her junior, was already living in New York City. He called Ernest Hadley, who asked his analysand, the owner and medical director of the Chestnut Lodge Sanatorium, in Rockville, Maryland, Dexter Bullard, Sr., M.D., whether he could use a German-Jewish immigrant on his staff. After some hesitation, Bullard hired her, at first as summer help. He saw immediately that she was just what he needed to actualize his dream of creating a psychoanalytically oriented hospital.

Early in her career, Fromm-Reichmann had worked closely with Kurt Goldstein, best known for his holistic approach to mental problems. He served as mentor for her medical school thesis , on the pupillary reactions of patients suffering from schizophrenia. Later, they published together (Dyrud, 1989). Unofficially, during World War I, as a Major in the Prussian Army, she ran a hospital for brain-injured soldiers, freeing Goldstein's time for writing. Later, she ran her own sanitorium in Heidelberg (Blomert, 1992; Fromm-Reichmann, 1989, working closely with Georg Groddeck, and underwent her first analysis with Karl Wittenberg. She then trained in psychoanalysis, graduating from the German Psychoanalytic Institute in Berlin; Hanns Sachs was her training analyst. Among the faculty during her training were Karl