In 1932, she started a private psychiatric practice at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, where she remained until her retirement in 1967.

Warburg also served as the co-chairman of the Emergency Committee on Relief and Immigration of the American Psychoanalytic Association from 1938 to 1948.

[3] These rescue committees provided passports, money, and jobs in the United States and Allied Europe for Jewish psychoanalysts affected by the rise of Nazism.

Between 1938 and 1943, Warburg was instrumental in organizing and financing the emigration of 154 Jewish psychiatrists and psychoanalysts from Germany and Austria.

[4] Bettina Warburg married musician Samuel Bonarios Grimson, ex-husband of Malvina Hoffman in 1942, although she continued to use her maiden name in her work.