Clara M. Thompson’s Early Years and Professional Awakening

Ann D’Ercole tells the story of Clara M. Thompson, drawing extensively on unpublished archival interviews and correspondence, to provide a full and complex picture of an early American pioneer of psychoanalysis. The book begins by exploring Thompson’s youth, which was steeped in evangelical Christianity, and conveys the difficulty that Thompson experienced as she resisted the restrictive conventions of femininity prevalent at the time. Despite this, Thompson’s talent as a student continually shi