02/07/2025
🎂 Happy 144th Birthday to Marie Bonaparte, born on this day in 1882!
Marie Bonaparte (1882-1962) was a French psychoanalyst, author, and patron whose intellectual contributions and political influence played a pivotal role in the international spread of psychoanalysis. A great-grandniece of Napoleon and princess by marriage to Prince George of Greece and Denmark, Bonaparte used her position and wealth to support the early psychoanalytic movement, both institutionally and personally. She began her analysis with Sigmund Freud in 1925 and remained one of his most devoted students, colleagues, and protectors.
Deeply interested in female sexuality and psychological suffering, Bonaparte undertook pioneering research on frigidity and the anatomical variability of the cl****is, resulting in the publication of her controversial 1924 work Female Sexuality. Though not always embraced by the psychoanalytic establishment, her writings anticipated later debates around sexual difference and the limits of Freud's theories of female development.
Bonaparte’s position at the intersection of politics, analysis, and literature allowed her to promote psychoanalysis across Europe and bridge intellectual communities in Vienna, Paris, and London and she played a decisive role in Freud's final years. As the N**i regime gained power, she used her diplomatic connections and personal fortune to arrange Freud's escape from Vienna to London in 1938, securing exit visas for him and several family members.
