Karin Stephen (née Costelloe; 10 March 1889 – 12 December 1953) was a British psychoanalyst and psychologist.

Early life and education

Karin Stephen was born Catherine Elizabeth Costelloe. Her mother, Mary Costelloe (born Mary Whitall Smith) (better known as Mary Berenson; 1864–1945) had been a Philadelphia Quaker, and her father, Benjamin Francis Conn Costelloe (1855–1899) a Northern Irish convert to Roman Catholicism. The relationship between her parents was difficult, and her mother left her husband when Karin and her sister

Rachel Rachel () was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban. Her older sister was Leah, Jacob's first wife. Her aun ...

were very young. Her father died in 1899 when she was ten years old, so the sisters were then looked after by their grandmother. While at boarding school she won a scholarship for

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sid ...

. Stephen went up to Newnham in 1907 but left after one year, due to various personal and health problems. She then spent a year at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

where she began to study philosophy and psychology. In 1909 she returned to Newnham and received a First class degree in Moral Sciences in 1910. In 1914 she became a Fellow at Newnham.

Career

In 1913 she and three other women started an unsuccessful legal action, known as ''Bebb vs. the Law Society'', claiming that the

Law Society A law society is an association of lawyers with a regulatory role that includes the right to supervise the training, qualifications, and conduct of lawyers. Where there is a distinction between barristers and solicitors, solicitors are regulated ...

should be compelled to admit them to its preliminary examinations. The three other women were Gwyneth Bebb, who the action was named after, Maud Crofts, and

Lucy Nettlefold Lucy Frances Nettlefold OBE aka Nancy Nettlefold (15 June 1891 – 30 March 1966) was a British company director and local government politician. She and three others took the Law Society to court for defining "person" as "man". Life Nettlefold ...

. She married

Adrian Stephen Adrian Leslie Stephen (27 October 1883 – 3 May 1948) was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, an author and psychoanalyst, and the younger brother of Thoby Stephen, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. He and his wife Karin Stephen became interest ...

(brother of

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

and

Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...

) in 1914. They had two children, Ann (1916–97) and Judith (1918–72). The couple, as

conscientious objectors A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...

, spent the war working on a dairy farm. They became interested in the work of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

and after the war, the couple trained as doctors in order to practice psychoanalysis. They went into analysis with James Glover and when he died, in 1926, Karin continued with

Sylvia Payne Sylvia May Payne (née Moore; 6 November 1880 – 30 May 1976) was one of the pioneers of psychoanalysis in the United Kingdom. Early life Born as Sylvia May Moore in Marylebone, London, the daughter of Rev. Edward William Moore and his wife ...

. They both qualified in 1927 and she worked in a psychiatric hospital. Accepted as an associate member of the

British Psychoanalytical Society The British Psychoanalytical Society was founded by the British neurologist Ernest Jones as the London Psychoanalytical Society on 30 October 1913. It is one of two organizations in Britain training psychoanalysts, the other being the British P ...

in 1927, she became a full member in 1931.Allie Dillon
Provenance: XP14A - Stephen, Karin (1890-1953) née Costelloe, psychologist and psychoanalyst
Stephen entered private practice as a psychoanalyst. She gave the first lecture course on psychoanalysis ever given at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

: the course of six lectures was repeated over several years, and formed the basis of her medical textbook ''Psychoanalysis and medicine''.Marion Milner, 'Obituary: Karin Stephen (1889-1953)', ''The International journal of psycho-analysis'', Vol. 35, 1954, pp.432-3 She suffered from deafness and

manic depression Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...

. After her husband died in 1948, her health deteriorated and she committed suicide in 1953.

Leonard Woolf Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society, Woolf was an avid publisher of his own work ...

considered Stephen 'Old

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

'.Hermione Lee, ''Virginia Woolf'' London: Chatto & Windus (1996), p. 263 Her papers are held in the archives of the

.Allie Dillon
Karin Stephen collection (P14)

Works

* ''The misuse of mind; a study of Bergson's attack on intellectualism'', New York: Harcourt, Brace; London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1922. With a prefatory letter by

Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson

. In

The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method was an influential series of monographs published from 1922 to 1965 under the general editorship of Charles Kay Ogden by Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner & Co. in London. This ser ...

. * ''Psychoanalysis & medicine; a study of the wish to fall ill'', New York: Macmillan; Cambridge: The University Press, 1933. * 'Introjection and Projection: Guilt and Rage', ''British Journal of Medical Psychology'' 14, pp. 316–31, 1934. * 'A correspondence with Dr Karin Stephen', in

C. H. Waddington Conrad Hal Waddington (8 November 1905 – 26 September 1975) was a British developmental biologist, paleontologist, geneticist, embryologist and philosopher who laid the foundations for systems biology, epigenetics, and evolutionary devel ...

, ''Science As Ethics'', London: George Allen & Unwin, 1943. * 'Relations between the Superego and the Ego', ''Psychoanalysis and History'' 2:1 (February 2000)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stephen, Karin 1890 births 1953 deaths British psychologists British psychoanalysts Fellows of Newnham College, Cambridge People with bipolar disorder Stephen-Bell family Bloomsbury Group 20th-century psychologists 1953 suicides Suicides in the United Kingdom