The forgotten mothers of modern therapy played a profound role in shaping the methods we now recognise as foundational to therapy and healing.
In almost every therapy training I’ve attended, one thing has stayed consistent: the room is mostly women, eighty percent, sometimes more.
Yet when we studied the history of psychotherapy, it was almost always men’s names that filled the reading lists: Freud, Jung, Perls, Rogers, Beck. The women were either missing, mentioned briefly, or referred to in relation to the men they worked beside, rarely acknowledged for the depth of their own contributions.
Much of what makes therapy effective today didn’t originate from the analytical, diagnostic tradition. It came from something deeper: relational presence, somatic awareness, intuition, creativity – a willingness to sit in the unknown with another human being.
These weren’t fringe methods; they were core shifts that redefined therapy, pioneered by women.
A History with Holes
The dominant narrative of therapy has long prioritised the rational mind.
Pathology. Diagnosis. Interpretation. Solutions.
That’s the lineage we’re taught.
But it’s only half the picture.
What often gets left out is the other lineage; the relational, embodied, creative, intuitive and deeply human one. The one that says healing is not just about analysing the past – it’s about being seen, felt and held in the present. That lineage was shaped by women whose names have been largely forgotten, but whose methods we still use today.
Below i’ve listed five women who quietly changed the history of therapy today.
Laura Perls (1905–1990)
Laura Perls was the co-founder of Gestalt Therapy, a revolutionary approach that emphasised direct experience, presence and integration. While her husband Fritz Perls became the public face of Gestalt, Laura was the quieter force who helped build its foundation.
She championed face to face therapy, placing importance on eye contact and presence.
These were radical departures from the Freudian model, who practised therapy by either standing behind or encouraging clients to lie on the couch. This was partly to avoid making clients self conscious, but also because he didn’t like being stared at all day.
Laura believed that healing wasn’t about fixing someone, it was about meeting them in their direct experience. She trusted the wisdom of the body and the power of present moment awareness long before somatic therapy became mainstream. Despite her pivotal role, Laura’s work was overshadowed by her husband, Fritz Perls, charisma and visibility.
Yet it’s her grounded, relational style that lives on in experiential therapies today.
Karen Horney (1885–1952)
Karen Horney was one of the earliest voices to challenge Freud’s patriarchal theories. While Freud framed women’s psychology through the lens of ‘penis envy,’ Horney flipped the narrative with her theory of ‘womb envy.’
But more than that, she introduced cultural and social context into psychological development; arguing that neurosis arose from relational anxieties and the pressures of societal norms.
Horney’s theory of neurotic needs outlined how people cope with fear and rejection by moving toward, against or away from others. This framework directly influenced later developments in attachment theory. She was one of the first to suggest that maybe women weren’t inherently flawed, but that the theories used to explain them were.
Despite her boldness and foresight, her contributions are rarely taught in mainstream psychology courses.
Judith Herman (b. 1942)
Judith Herman’s work changed the landscape of trauma therapy. In her landmark book Trauma and Recovery, she outlined the concept of complex PTSD before it had a name.
She recognised that chronic trauma – especially in relational or systemic contexts – produced a different kind of wounding than one time events. Her model of recovery moved beyond symptom management toward empowerment, safety, and re-connection.
Herman also bridged the personal and the political, linking trauma to larger systems of oppression: war, abuse, gendered violence. She gave voice to survivors who had been pathologised or ignored.
Her work brought compassion, depth, and context to trauma treatment, yet she remains less known than her male counterparts in the field.
Marion Milner (1900–1998)
Marion Milner was a British psychoanalyst, artist and writer whose work explored the therapeutic power of creativity and introspection. Her book A Life of One’s Own chronicled her journey through inner observation, using journaling as a means to uncover hidden patterns and unconscious beliefs; decades before journaling became a therapeutic tool.
Milner introduced the idea of “wide awareness,” a state of spacious, non judgemental attention that she considered vital to change. She also integrated art and therapy through doodles, drawing and free expression.
Her approach was too intuitive for the analytic circles of her time, but today it resonates with mindfulness based therapy and creative arts interventions.
Her name, however, is still often left out of the story.
Melanie Klein (1882–1960)
Melanie Klein revolutionised psychoanalysis through her work with children. She pioneered play therapy as a way to access the unconscious, introducing object relations theory to explain how internalised relationships shape our future attachments. Klein was one of the first to argue that infants experience complex inner worlds and emotional positions from a very young age.
Her concepts, such as the paranoid schizoid and depressive positions, have become essential to understanding emotional development and defences. Though controversial in her time, Klein’s theories are now deeply embedded in modern psychodynamic therapy.
She helped shape how we think about internal conflict and early relational wounds, yet her name is still often reduced to a footnote.
What Happens When We Remember
Remembering the forgotten mothers of modern therapy is not just about setting the historical record straight.
It’s about acknowledging the deeper lineage that shapes how we work with people today. Relational presence. Somatic integration. Creative expression. These aren’t soft add-ons; they are the core of what makes therapy truly transformational.
For too long, these contributions were dismissed as overly emotional or insufficiently scientific. Now they are being rediscovered as cutting edge. The field is finally catching up to what these women knew all along: that healing happens in the body, in the relationship, in presence. Not just in analysis.
Closing Reflection
This isn’t about excluding the men, but giving credit where it’s due.
The history of therapy isn’t just Freud’s cigar or Jung’s archetypes.
It’s Laura’s eye contact.
Karen’s courage.
Judith’s clarity.
Marion’s creativity.
Melanie’s play.
Modern therapy is returning to the wisdom of women who saw what others missed... and kept going anyway.