The Woman Who Was a Muse to Nietzsche, Rilke, and Freud
The first female psychoanalyst — Lou Andreas-Salomé
Source — Wikipedia
In an era when women of geniuses were not given exposure to showcase their talent or intellect, Lou Andreas-Salomé was one such woman who broke conventional barriers and carved her own journey. She was the first female psychoanalyst in the world and a lady philosopher of the 19th century when women were neither expected nor allowed to study philosophy.
Her intellectual gravity and creative potency made her a muse to some of the most phenomenal thinkers of the 19th century.
To Nietzsche, she was the “the smartest person I ever knew,” the perfect heir to his philosophy, “the best and most fruitful ploughland” for his ideas. To Rainer Maria Rilke, she was an “extraordinary woman” without whose influence “my whole development would not have been able to take the paths that have led to many things.” And to Sigmund Freud, she was “an understander par excellence,” the second woman in his life (after his beloved sister-in-law Minna Bernays) and the only woman among his colleagues with whom he would maintain a long and continuous correspondence.
This article will take you through her body of work and the brief relationships she had with the most intellectual minds.
