Menaker, Esther

Esther Menaker (nee Astin) was born on 6 September 1907 in Bern, Switzerland. She moved to the United States with her family at the age of three.

Menaker earned a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry and a Master's degree in Social Work, both at the University of Pennsylvania. Following her marriage in 1930 to William Menaker, the couple traveled to the University of Vienna for Doctoral training in Psychology. During this time they each completed two years of psychoanalysis: Esther Menaker with Anna Freud and William Menaker with Helene Deutsch.

In 1934 the Menakers settled in New York City where they each played a role in the development of non-medical psychoanalytic training; notably, they helped to found the Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis within New York University's Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program.

Menaker worked in both private practice as a Psychoanalyst and as a professor for New York University and, later, Columbia University. Throughout her career she wrote on several topics including masochism, ego psychology, Otto Rank, Heinz Kohut, self psychology, and women. She also wrote accounts of her personal experiences, notably her training in Vienna published as a book in 1989: Appointment in Vienna (reprinted as Misplaced Loyalties in 1995).

On 20 August 2003, Esther Menaker passed away from congestive heart failure.

References: Ceccoli, V. C. (2004). Esther Menaker (1907-2003). American Psychologist, 59, 4, p. 262.

From the guide to the Esther Menaker papers, 1928-2003, (Center for the History of Psychology)