Maria Weigl Piers (May 17, 1911 – May 21, 1997) was an Austrian-born American psychologist, social worker, educator and prolific author, whose career was especially devoted to the psycho-social development of children.
Pazeller came from a prominent Catholic family, which included Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), her cousin.
Maria and Gerhart married shortly after the Anschluss, in the spring of 1938, and fled from Austria to Switzerland later that year, crossing the border on the pretense of taking a day long hike in the Swiss Alps.
[9] In addition to Erik and Joan Erikson, over the span of her career Piers’ work intersected with that of many notable scholars and practitioners, including her close friends and colleagues, René Spitz, Konrad Lorenz, Anna Freud, Jean Piaget and Jane Goodall.
In the midst of the civil rights movement, and the context of school integration in particular, Piers began to recognize the significant gap between theoretical, psychoanalytic knowledge about child development, and the way that parents – especially poor, disadvantaged parents – were raising their children, and the idea for bringing theory and practice together, via Erikson Institute, was born.