orig. Karen Danielsen
born Sept. 16, 1885, Blankenese, near Hamburg, Ger.
died Dec. 4, 1952, New York, N.Y., U.S.
German-U.S. psychoanalyst.
After receiving her M.D. degree, she underwent psychoanalytic training with Karl Abraham , and from 1920 to 1932 she conducted a private practice while also teaching at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. Settling in New York City in 1934, she began teaching at the New School for Social Research. She departed from some of Sigmund Freud 's basic principles, rejecting his concept of penis envy and emphasizing the need to help patients identify and cope with the specific causes of current anxieties rather than focus on childhood traumas and fantasies. Expelled from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1941, she organized a new group, the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis. Her works include The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937) and New Ways in Psychoanalysis (1939).