My journey ends here...
KRIS Marianne
Born Marianne Ries.
Date of birth : May 27, 1900, Vienna, Austria.
Date of death : November 23, 1980, London.
Address of her office : 135 Central Park West, Langham building (the same building where lived the Strasbergs); tel TRafalgar 7-6273
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Her office was also her apartment.
Portrait
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Profession psychiatrist, psychoanalyst.
Story
Last daughter of Oskar Rie (December 8, 1863, Vienna-September 17, 1931, Vienna)
(
) and Melanie Bondy (July 15, 1872, Vienna-August 25, 1938, Vienna)
(
)(
;
;
-
).
Her father was the Freud family pediatrician, friend of Sigmund
Freud (
) and from 1908, member of the WPV (Viennese Society of Psychoanalysis).
Marianne was friend with Anna Freud.
She studied medicine at the university of Vienna, specialized in psychiatry and became Doctor in 1925.
She continued her studies in Berlin where she
joined the Psychoanalytical Institute where practised Freudian marxists
(Franz Alexander, Otto Fenichel, Ernst Simmel,
Rudolf Lowenstein).
Following Freud's advice she was analysed by Franz Alexander.
In 1924, Ernst Kris,
then curator at the Art History Museum of Vienna, was introduced to
Freud, through her fiancée Marianne Kris, to advise him about
his antiquities collection.
Freud also recommended Kris to begin an analysis, which he did with Helene Deutsch.
In 1927 Marianne came back to Vienna. On November 10, 1927, in Vienna she married Walther Ernst Kris (April
27, 1900, Austria-February 27,1957, New York)(
,
,
),
reknown later as the theoretician of the "I" psychology.
They had 2 children, Anna Kris Wolff (November 18, 1931, Vienna-July 30, 2019, Massachusetts)(
)
and Anton Oscar (July 26, 1934, Vienna-March 11, 2021, Massachusetts)(
), they both would become psychiatrists.
In 1928 Ernst and
Marianne
Kris were members of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society, Ernst, at the
same time, continuing his art historian career. Marianne Kris took part
in the children analytical seminar of Anna Freud, and published her
first analytical work about children in 1932.
In 1932, Ernst Kris wrote his first psychoanalytical work in Imago journal, to which he soon became the co-editor.
He worked with Rudolph Loewenstein, the former psychoanalyst of Arthur Miller.
In 1938, after the
incorporation of Austria to Germany, the Kris family (as the Freud
family) escaped to England. Marianne became member and teacher at
the British
Psychoanalytical Society, like her husband, member of the same society,
while working at the BBC as expert of the Nazi propaganda analysis.
They emigrated to the USA via Canada on September 15, 1940 
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;
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April 15, 1941, Declaration of Intention 
and Petition for Naturalization 
for Ernst.
He was naturalized on January 14, 1946 
.
and Petition for Naturalization 
for Marianne.She was naturalized on November 7, 1945
.He was named professor
at the New School for Social Research where he founded a research program about the totalitarian propaganda.
In 1943 he taughed at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and became member of the New York Psychoanalysis Society.
In 1944 she became
member of New York Psychoanalytic Institute (NYPS) too, where, next to
Berta Bornstein, she belonged to the small number of people who dealt
with the children analysis.
She gave courses not only to the doctors but also to people with other
jobs. Her work with youth workers and social workers at the
"Jewish Board of Guardian" and her involvement to the researches about the
children of the Kibbutz, allowed her to apply the psychoanalytical
theories beyond the conventional treatments.
In 1945, Ernst Kris founded the journal The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child he would ran.
With her husband, they worked on various researches projects which led to the creation fo the Child Study Center
at the Yale University.
Since 1958, the main
axis of Marianne Kris was the simultaneous psychoanalysis of several
members of the same family, whose results were presentéd in 1972 at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
They were close to Ralph and Hildi Greenson.
Ernst Kris died on February 27, 1957 in New York City (
;
), several weeks before Marilyn started her psychoanalysis sessions.
Marianne Kris became editor of the journal founded by her husband, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child
(
).
With Anna Freud, she fought for the children analysis to be admitted,
leading to the creation of a forum inside the APsaA (American
Psychoanalysis Association) in 1964.
In 1965 she was the first president of the Child Psychoanalysis Association in New York.
The Marianne Kris prize rewards, every year, the person or the programme which had scientifically contributed, in a deep and sustained way, to the emotional well-being of the children and their family.
She died on November 23, 1980 at Anna Freud's home in London, after having attended the International Forum of the Hampstead Clinic.
Link with Marilyn
She was the psychoanalyst with who Marilyn made the longest work.
Marilyn began to see her in April
1957, after having left Dr Margaret Hohenberg.
Marianne Kris had been recommended to her by Anna Freud.
Marilyn met her at her office, regularly, 5 times a week, until the beginning of 1961.
She stopped her analysis during her stay on the West Coast for the shooting of "The Misfits" (1961), and then began her sessions with Dr Greenson.
Marilyn lost her trust in her in February 1961 when Marianne Kris made her hospitalized at the Payne Whitney Hospital, either on Marilyn's self request who had suffered from important tensions the previous months, or on her own initiative, fearing a suicidal behaviour from Marilyn.
When Marilyn realized she was in a safety wing,
she collapsed : her worse nightmare, being locked up as her mother and
grand-mother, came true.
After several days, she managed to pass a message on Joe DiMaggio, who rushed up from Florida, and made her transferred to a more quiet environment.
Most biographers agree to tell that it was the last meeting between Marilyn and her.
She was one of the main beneficiaries of Marilyn's will, dated from January 1961, either because Marilyn hadn't have enough time to change it, or because she trusted again Marianne Kris.
When Marianne Kris died, she passed her inheritance on to the therapeutic center for children of the Tavistock Center Clinic, in London, founded by Anna Freud.
The funds allowed the creation of the Monroe Young Familiy Centre.
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