Introduction

The papers in this issue were originally prepared as parts of an ongoing series on women psychoanalysts held under the aegis of the Oral History Workshops of the American Psychoanalytic Association. The goal of the workshops has been (and is) to present research into the lives and careers of women who have contributed to the development of psychoanalysis through their institutional roles and their clinical and theoretical papers, but whose contributions are at risk of being forgotten with the passage of time. To date, three workshops have been devoted to this topic. The papers published here explore the careers of American women psychoanalysts. This focus reflects both serendipity and purpose: serendipity in that when the workshops began in 1994 several scholars were engaged in projects on American women analysts; and purpose in that research was undertaken on several women because it was recognized that their careers and lives were already shrouded in obscurity and serious efforts were required to reconstruct them. American women analysts have historically received less scholarly attention than European-born women analysts (Helene Deutsch, Anna Freud, Karen Horney, and Melanie Klein et al.) presumably because the latter played important roles in the institutional development of psychoanalysis both in Europe and the United States and participated in notable psychoanalytic controversies.

The women featured in this issue come from a variety of backgrounds, and represent individualistic talents and temperaments reflected in their wide-ranging contributions to clinical and theoretical literature and their roles in developing psychoanalytic societies and institutes. We begin with two of the earliest women in the American psychoanalytic movement, Mary O'Malley, M.D.,