Alexandra von Wolff-Stomersee

Alexandra Tomasi, Princess of Lampedusa, Duchess of Palma (née von Wolff-Stomersee; born 13 November 1894 in Nice, France; died 22 June 1982 in Palermo, Italy),[1] known to familiars as “Licy”,[2] was an Italian and Baltic German psychoanalyst.

[3] She was the daughter of Italian mezzo-soprano and violinist Alice Barbi[3] (1858-1948[4]) and Baron Boris von Wolff-Stomersee [ru][3] (1850–1917[5]).

Raised in St. Petersburg, where her father was a high official in the court of Imperial Russia,[3] in 1918 she married the Baltic German Baron André Pilar von Pilchau (1891–1960), an international banker.

[11] They first lived with Tomasi's mother at the Lampedusa Palace in Palermo, but the incompatibility between the two women soon drove her back to Latvia.

She served on the editorial board of the Rivista di Psicoanalisi, established in 1955[3] Her 1946 lecture "Sviluppi della diagnostica e tecnica psicoanalitica" ("Developments in psychoanalytic diagnostics and technique") introduced the concept of borderline personality disorder.