Else Pappenheim (1911-2009): A Remembrance

The neurologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst Else Pappenheim died January 11, 2009, at her home in Manhattan. She was 97.

Else Pappenheim was born May 22, 1911, in Salzburg, Austria, the daughter of Edith Goldschmidt-Pappenheim and Martin Pappenheim, M.D., a colleague of Sigmund Freud. She grew up in Vienna, attended the innovative Schwarzwald-Realgymnasium and, in 1929 started the study of medicine at the University of Vienna. After receiving her M.D. degree, she worked as an intern at the neuropsychiatric clinic in Vienna.

The aftermath of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century in Vienna was a seminal time of intellectual, political, social, and artistic ferment. Pappenheim was culturally connected to it through her training in psychiatry, neurology, and psychoanalysis—and by being a woman physician.

In March 1938, upon watching Hitler's goose-stepping storm troopers marching through the streets of Vienna, she emigrated to the United States via Palestine, where her father had a practice. She began her life in the United States in Baltimore, where she worked under Adolf Meyer, president of the American Psychiatric Association and one of the most influential figures in psychiatry in the first half of the 20th century. She passed the tough Maryland state medical examination and obtained a job as a psychiatrist in a Maryland psychiatric hospital, where she was placed in charge of the women's ward. In an early protest against discrimination against women physicians, she refused, at an official banquet, to be seated in the nurses' section.

In 1941 she moved to New York City, and in 1946 she and Stephen Frischauf, an electrical engineer who had emigrated from Austria in 1938, were married after his return from U.S. Army service in World War II. The couple moved to New Haven, Conn., in 1947, where Pappenheim taught at the Yale Medical School, and her husband attended law school at the University of Connecticut to become a patent attorney.

The couple returned to New York City in 1952, where Pappenheim supervised mental health professionals at Hunter College and at the Fashion Institute of Technology of the State University of New York. During this time she increasingly started to question the practicality of Freudian psychoanalysis as too costly and time consuming to resolve mental health problems in all but a few patients. In public forums she began to ask, “How could a school teacher afford classical analysis?” and urged psychiatrists to be practical in helping patients. In 1964 she joined Kings County Hospital and the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center as an attending physician and associate professor of psychiatry and neurology.

Pappenheim described her work at Kings County Hospital as “the “happiest times” in her professional life, as it gave her the opportunity to teach future clinicians, as well as to help a wide variety of patients from many cultures, most of whom were poor.

In addition to a small private practice, Pappenheim also served on the attending staffs of the Hospital for Special Surgery, Roosevelt Hospital, and St. Claire's Hospital, all in Manhattan.

In 2004, a collection of her papers, letters, and biographical material was published in a German language book by Nausner & Nausner (Graz, Vienna).

The book, Hölderlin, Feuchtersleben, Freud: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse, der Psychiatrie und Neurologie (Hölderlin, Feuchtersleben, Freud: Contributions to the History of Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry, and Neurology), includes extensive commentary by Pappenheim's co-author and editor, Bernhard Handlbauer. He is a Salzburg psychotherapist and historian, who worked closely on the book with Frischauf.

A 2004 book tour by Pappenheim and Handlbauer was widely attended in Vienna and resulted in extensive coverage and interviews in newspapers, magazines, and radio in Europe. Interviewers commented on her varied and wide experiences, and her subtle humor.

In spite of the painful experiences of her forced emigration, Pappenheim retained her love for Vienna, which, in later years, she visited annually, often accompanied by her family. She was well read, both in English and German literature, was a good pianist, and loved classical music, particularly Bach.

In the days following her death, numerous obituaries were published in the European media, including notices in the Austrian and German press. Her friends, patients, students, home help, and everyone she came in contact with appreciated her warmth, caring, and helpfulness. In addition to me, my mother is survived by her husband, her son, Peter, and her grandchildren Emily Haeckel and Henry Bridge.