Profile

Career Focus:

Psychoanalysis and feminism, clinical and health psychologist, psychotherapist and group therapist, teaching analyst (SFU/PSI), supervisor, founding member of Selbstlaut (association against sexualized violence against children and adolescents), university lecturer, psychotherapy sciences, GenderStudyGroup

Biography

Anita Dietrich-Neunkirchner is an Austrian psychoanalyst, clinical and health Psychologist in private practice, as well as a teaching and group therapist at the Faculty of Psychotherapy Sciences of the Sigmund Freud Private University in Vienna. There, she is also a lecturer, as well as the founder and director of the GenderStudyGroup, an ongoing interdisciplinary research and literature seminar on clinical and cultural aspects of gender discourses. Dietrich-Neunkirchner is furthermore one of the founders of the autonomous Association Selbstlaut, a Viennese specialized center against sexualized violence against children and adolescents.

Dietrich-Neunkirchner grew up in the village of Bisamberg, close to Vienna, in a shared household with a brother, parents and her grandparents. From her mother, she learned how to manage money and about the importance of perseverance. As the first academic in her family, she graduated from high school and then completed an education as a medical-technical assistant at a technical college. After completing her training and gaining her first work experience, Dietrich-Neunkirchner began to study in 1985, where she received support in particular from her father, despite his own little connection to academia: "Even though I didn't have any intellectual support, my father was very pleased that I was enthusiastic about learning. He was proud of me that I had studied [and] that I was a clever woman [...] because in feminism you often see biographies [...] where there are difficult paternally restrictive ideas about the future for women, but that wasn't the case with me." Although Dietrich-Neunkirchner had to learn many things about university life on her own, she also experienced it as an advantage that her academic education was not already shaped a priori by parental images and expectations.

After gaining insights into German studies and Philosophy through various courses at the University of Vienna, Dietrich-Neunkirchner's further educational path led her to Psychology out of personal motives. Especially in the Institute for Depth Psychology (located at the Medical University of Vienna) at that time, she attended many courses on topics specific to women: "I must have made three times as many credits as I ever needed, because I went everywhere that interested me." Although only a few women were teaching in the field at the time, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts Dr. Kitty Schmidt and Prof. Marianne Springer-Kremser were lasting role models for Dietrich-Neunkirchner as she continued her path. Dietrich-Neunkirchner herself became very interested in psychotherapy and it became clear to her that she also wanted to go in the therapeutic direction. Early on, she became involved in a wide variety of therapeutic self-awareness processes, ultimately choosing psychoanalysis as her professional focus.

"You know, there are two levels [for me], so the psychological is very often on the consciousness-raising, strengthening, encouraging level. [...] But parallel to that, I've always been interested in: "What's behind all this? Making the unconscious conscious, so to speak." Parallel to her studies, Dietrich-Neunkirchner therefore began psychoanalysis training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Seminar (WPS) in 1990, where she quickly became disturbed by the fact that the men in her psychoanalytic seminar only used the generic masculine when speaking. She used these situations to test herself in asserting women's issues and enforced gender-equal language in the training association.

Dietrich-Neunkirchner recalled that the first beginnings of her feminist understanding developed in her childhood: "As a feminist psychoanalyst, of course, one's own biography is always important as well [...] and that is shaped by one's parents." She grew up with a traditional distribution of roles in her own parental home, but she emphasizes the way the women in her family treated each other as a formative influence. In the context of her dissertation, Dietrich-Neunkirchner has been speaking of the concept of "symbolic sisterhood" in this regard, whereby several women in her life showed her that "women can talk very openly among themselves about difficulties."

After completing her studies, Dietrich-Neunkirchner connected with the founder of a Berlin-based prevention program to strengthen children against sexual abuse (Association Strohhalm). Recognizing that prevention with all its different facets such as school workshops, education and parental work, is a challenging field, an interdisciplinary group of five collaborating women, was formed around Dietrich-Neunkirchner, which would remain stable for the next 15 years. This "professional symbolic sister group" served as the founding foundation of the Viennese violence prevention association Selbstlaut - Specialist Center against Sexualized Violence against Children and Adolescents. Despite a coming together of different and strong characters, the women were united by a great commonality: "What we had in common was not only that we wanted to strengthen children, but that we wanted a feminist approach in the sense of gender justice; to look at where things were going wrong [and] to break up patriarchy." Another goal of the association was sex education, especially teaching children how to recognize and express their own bodily boundaries.

After her time at Selbstlaut, Dietrich-Neunkirchner moved into the university context at the private Sigmund Freud University, where she lectures on various topics. Feminism, women's issues and psychoanalysis have always existed in parallel for her, whereby the criticism of Freud's model of femininity by the German sociologist and psychoanalyst Prof. Dr. Christa Rohde-Dachser also inspired her to have more freedom of thought for her own critical questions in psychoanalytic discourse. Thus, Dietrich-Neunkirchner takes the position that "in psychoanalysis [...] the women-specific aspect [needs] to be elaborated more." Therefore, in addition to her teaching activities, she founded the GenderStudyGroup, which is an interdisciplinary research and literature seminar on issues of gender construction in psychotherapeutic, psychological, and media discourse. As its director, Dietrich-Neunkirchner is concerned that "[feminist theories] not only be discussed in the discipline-specific psychoanalysis course, but that students from all areas of the university be given the opportunity to critically examine clinical and sociocultural issues in a gender-sensitive manner."

In addition to the GenderStudyGroup, Dietrich-Neunkirchner is also involved in clinical group work and group psychoanalytic processes at the university, which for her offer starting points for observing and working through sociopolitical motives: "The group is a reflection of society and whenever I reflect on society, I can also change myself a little." To this day, Dietrich-Neunkirchner also describes her experiences in the women's group in the Selbstlaut association as formative for these approaches in her psychological work.

In her own life, Dietrich-Neunkirchner has experienced gender-specific discrimination; in her childhood, as an example, it was still widely believed that men had a higher status than women. Especially from her mother's side, as well as her grandmother's, she clearly felt that more care was taken for her brother's well-being than for her own. These experiences also had an impact on her time at university, "because this is internalized, that as a woman you don't dare to say anything as quickly, or that women are given less say." In 2019, for example, she was still invited to a Freud conference in Berlin as the only female keynote speaker. But she found reinforcement from other female fellow students and colleagues who shared grievances and supported each other in courses. Strengthening female friendships, such as with Dr. Traude Ebermann, are therefore important for Dietrich-Neunkirchner, because only reading literature is "such a lonely story, you do need someone to talk to." Meanwhile, she herself acts as a mentor, offering advice and support to students who want to explore gender-specific topics and publish: "If someone is interested in psychoanalysis and women's issues, my door is always open."

Despite continuing progress in recent years, Dietrich-Neunkirchner points out that there is still a great deal of socio-political work to be done. It is clear that "as a woman, you know you don't have to be perfect [...], but women need to be empowered to be loud, to go out in public and to have an opinion", since gender power relations still exist. Another issue that the feminist psychoanalyst advocates for in her diverse work is the ending of taboos on gender identities, as well as the liberation of relationship forms. While she can observe a change in the zeitgeist here, Dietrich-Neunkirchner critically notes that fundamental patriarchal structures, such as a binary gender order, persist, which requires remaining vigilant and not resting on the accomplishments of other feminists.

Anita Dietrich-Neunkirchner is proud of her time at Selbstlaut, because "that was my becoming, I would say, also my [...] becoming strong as a woman with a topic", as well as of the successful establishment of the GenderStudyGroup, because through this she creates a new place for gender-sensitive aspects at the university every semester. For Dietrich-Neunkirchner, it is therefore important to pass on "not to withdraw in a huff when there are defeats", but to talk about them with trusted people and to strengthen each other.

By Emelie Rack & Lea-Jule Gerbert (2023)

To cite this article, see Credits

Selected Works

Selected Works

By Anita Dietrich-Neunkirchner

Dietrich-Neunkirchner, A. (2009). Der Traum – eine Metapher aus Geist und Körper? Ein psychoanalytischer Zugang zu Weiblichkeitssymbolik und Psychosexualität der Frau. In: M. Bidwell-Steiner & V. Zangl (Eds.), Körperkonstruktionen und Geschlchtermetaphern. Zum Zusammenhang von Rhetorik und Embodiment (p. 117-131). Studienverlag.

Dietrich, Neunkirchner, A. (2013). Hijab und Burka – Psychoanalytische Assoziationen zur „verschleierten“ Frau. Feedback – Zeitschrift für Gruppentherapie und Beratung, 324, 18–35.

Dietrich-Neunkirchner, A. (2019). Symbolische Schwesternschaft. Eine psychoanalytische Studie zur weiblichen Beziehungskultur und Übertragungsdynamik im beruflichen Kontext. Psychosozial Verlag.

Dietrich-Neunkirchner, A. (28. August 2019). Feministische Psychoanalyse heute. Sexualität – Körper – Macht – Gesellschaft [Keynote]. SFU Berlin Kongress: 80 Jahre nach Freud. Zur Aktualität von Freuds Denken.

Dietrich-Neunkirchner, A. (01. März 2020). Rolemodels in Wissenschaft und Politik [Opening lecture]. SFU Wien Festmatinee anlässlich des Internationalen Frauentages: Feministin sein – Vorbild und Gegenbild.

Dietrich-Neunkirchner, A., & Korischek, C. (2021). Worte entstehen, wenn man der Zunge freien Lauf lässt. Eine Feldforschungsreise erzählt in sechs Traumbildern. Zeitschrift für freie psychoanalytische Forschung und Individualpsychologie, 1(21).

Dietrich-Neunkirchner, A. (2022). Gruppenpsychoanalyse und Univeristät. Zur gruppenanalytischen Praxis in universitärer Forschung und Lehre. In: G. Dietrich & F. Fossel (Eds.), Gruppenpsychoanalyse (p. 311-327). Facultas.

Dietrich-Neunkirchner, A., & Pap, G. (Hsg). (2024 (in press)). Träume in Zeiten der Corona-Pandemie. Psychoanalytische und individualpsychologische Beiträge zur Traumforschung. Psychosozial-Verlag.

By and about Anita Dietrich-Neunkirchner

Dietrich-Neunkirchner, A. (15. August 2022). Interview with E. Rack [Video Recording].

Grabitz, I. (21. December 2020). Zeitungsinterview mit Anita Dietrich-Neunkirchner in Zeit Online: Von der Schwester will ich, was ich bei der Mutter vermisse. Zeit Online. Available here: https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/familie/2020-12/geschwister-anita-dietrich-neunkirchner-psychologie-familie-harmonie