Barbara Low (29 July 1874[1] – 25 December 1955) was one of the first British psychoanalysts, and an early pioneer of analytic theory in England.
Low was born in London and named Alice Leonora, the eleventh and last child of Therese (née Schacherl) and Maximillian Loewe, who moved to Britain following Loewe's part in the failed 1848 uprising in Hungary.
[citation needed] She later went to Berlin for analysis with Hanns Sachs, and became a founder member of the British Psychoanalytical Society.
[4] Having led the welcoming committee for Austrian analysts in 1938,[5] Low supported Anna Freud and Edward Glover in the wartime controversial discussions.
A Brief Account of the Freudian Theory,[7] she introduced the concept of the Nirvana principle[8] (German: Nirwanaprinzip)[9] for indicating the organism's tendency to keep stimuli to a minimum level.