Obituary notices

Vera was born in Berlin at the turn of the century. Her family was aristocratic and wealthy, her father being a merchant banker and a Jew; her mother was of German and Irish parentage. Enjoying her childhood and education in Berlin, she had the good fortune of having progressive parents who believed in educating their daughters, a character trait that manifested itself in her love of knowledge and an understanding of people.

However, this idyllic life among bankers, diplomats and royalty was not to last. The social and political situation in Germany changed after the defeat of Germany in the first world war.

On the day after the Armistice in 1918 Vera married Baron Edward von der Heydt. The marriage ended in divorce in 1927, and Vera returned to her family in Berlin. When Hitler came to power in 1933, she left Germany once more and made her way to England, which was to become her home for the rest of her life.

After coming to London she worked in the film industry for a number of years. All the time her thoughts and feelings dwelt on the dreadful events then happening in Germany to her family and friends. It seems that all these events led her into an inner journey and spiritual quest. The first step was taken when she became a Catholic in 1937, and another significant step was taken when she commenced analysis with Dr John Layard in Oxford during the war. This led her to take on her first psychological post as a lay analyst at the Davidson Clinic in Edinburgh under Dr Winifred Rushforth in 1943.

The spiritual quest continued. Although the psychological orientation at the Davidson Clinic was mainly Freudian, Vera's disposition was distinctly Jungian. And so, after the war, she went to Zurich and worked with Jung. This was in fact only taking up a much earlier invitation when she had met him in the 1920s. Three years in Zurich, analysing with Dr Jung and Jolande Jacobi provided her with the necessary psychological grounding she neede