Josine Müller

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Josine Müller (1884–1930) was a German doctor and psychoanalyst who helped develop feminist ideas in psychoanalysis. She was born Josine Ebsen in Hamburg on October 10, 1884, and her mother died soon after her birth. She studied medicine at the University of Freiburg from 1906, becoming one of Germany’s first women to study medicine there, along with Karen Horney. In 1912 she earned her doctorate at the University of Berlin, researching fat reserves and ester cleavage in the blood.

Life
In 1913 she married Carl Müller-Braunschweig; they divorced in 1925.

Career
Müller started as a medical doctor in the children’s department at Hohenlychen Sanatorium but soon became interested in psychoanalysis. She began training with Karl Abraham in 1912. From 1913 to 1919 she worked as an assistant at Berlin’s Friedrichshain Hospital, and she completed her training as a neurological-psychiatric specialist at the Berolinum Sanatorium in Lankwitz (1915–1916). In 1921 she joined the Berlin Psychoanalytic Association and later worked at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, specializing in analytic treatment for children. With Hanns Sachs she did a secondary analysis from 1923 to 1926, and in 1926 she opened a private practice in Wilmersdorf.

Müller was interested in psychoanalysis from a feminist perspective and explored issues around female sexuality. She and Karen Horney criticized Freud’s theory of “primary masculinity” and penis envy, arguing for gender as equal and complementary. She published several works on these topics, including studies on libido development in girls.

Works
Her key publications include:
- Josine Ebsen: About the course of fat reserve. Ester cleavage in the blood (Dissertation, 1912)
- Josine Müller: Early atheism and poor character development (1925)
- Josine Müller: A Contribution to the Question of Libido Development in Girls in the Genital Phase (1925; English version appeared in later collections)

Death
Before her death, she planned a larger work titled The Infantile Femininity in Narcissism. She died of pneumonia on a boat trip to the Canary Islands on December 30, 1930.