Her mother, Eleanor Schröder a Christian from a Hamburg banking family, had Irish ancestry.
In 1919 she married Baron Eduard von der Heydt, a German and Swiss banker and patron of the arts.
With the rise of Antisemitism in Germany, von der Heydt decided in 1933 to move to the United Kingdom where she had friends.
[2] At his suggestion, she travelled to Zürich and began a training analysis with Jolande Jacobi and subsequently with Dr. Jung himself.
In 1943 she moved to Edinburgh to work at the Davidson Clinic run by the Jung follower, Dr. Winifred Rushforth.