ABSTRACT
The authors describe intriguing aspects of Edith’s childhood, family, and upbringing in a stimulating and creative circle of early 20th-century Viennese intellectuals, artists, and psychoanalysts. Sources include testimonials by childhood friends and contemporaries; Edith's own words about an admired family friend, Mädi Olsen; and the description of a home movie which shows Edith, at 12 years of age, interacting with a caring net of family and friends at Mädi’s lakeside vacation house in Grundlsee. This caring net with Mädi at its center, which shaped Edith’s development, has profoundly influenced the development of art therapy as well.
