Active in Germany and the United States between the years 1921 and 1977,[3] she was regarded for her work on psychosomatic medicine, women's psychosexual development, sexual dysfunction, and family relationships.
[5] Benedek initially decided to pursue a career in child psychology and study the effects of maternal separation on infant emotions.
[4] Having taken courses from Hungarian psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi, an associate of Sigmund Freud, during her university days, she decided to switch her career track to psychoanalysis.
[1] Nevertheless, in 1936 her husband convinced her to leave Germany and accept the offer of Franz Alexander to work as a training analyst for the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.
[1] Influenced by the theories of hysteria promulgated by Freud, her early research had sought a link between psychological and endocrinal factors for such problems as anxiety, aggression, and diabetes.
[4] In the United States, working with endocrinologist Boris B. Rubinstein, she conducted extensive studies on the correlation between ovulation and female emotions, resulting in the 1942 book The Sexual Cycle in Women.
[4] Benedek explored a link between the estrogen/progesterone cycle and a woman's desire to engage in sexual intercourse, nurture a pregnancy, and raise children.
[11] She published further research on parenthood, family relationships, and depression into her seventies, and continued seeing patients in private practice after her retirement from the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis in 1969.