Her family moved to Antwerp and her father, Noé Pines, who was an ophthalmic surgeon, was given a medal by the King of Belgium after a successful operation on his eyes.

Shortly thereafter her father moved to London as he believed, erroneously, that his qualifications would be accepted there without further retraining.

She practiced as a General Practitioner and also ran dermatology clinics at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital and the South London Hospital for Women and Children[3] Finding that her patients responded better to talking than to any medicaments prescribed for their skin conditions led her to experiment with an emotional approach to reducing skin problems.

She was a foundational member of the Brent Adolescent Centre set up by Moe and Egle Laufer and became chair of the B Group at the Institute of Psychoanalysis.

[4] Although she wrote extensively on subjects relating to the inner psychology of women Dinora Pines was also a pioneer in the psychoanalytic treatment of first and second generation survivors of the Holocaust.