The Psychoanalytic Quarterly was established by Dorian Feigenbaum, Bertram D. Lewin, Frankwood Williams, and Gregory Zilboorg.

In the opening issue they described the journal's aims: This Quarterly will be devoted to theoretical, clinical and applied psychoanalysis.

It has been established to fill the need for a strictly psychoanalytic organ in America…A close collaboration with associates abroad will be maintained.

At the same time, a prime objective of the magazine is to stimulate American work and provide an outlet for it.

[4] The new journal was also watched carefully by Smith Ely Jelliffe and William Alanson White of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, which published Psychoanalytic Review: the Quarterly [...] is very excellent and I wish they would get on with it.