Kate Friedlander was born and qualified in medicine in Innsbruck. She then moved to Berlin where she specialized in mental and nervous diseases. She trained as a psychoanalyst and worked in a juvenile court in Berlin. In 1933 Friedlander moved to London where she cooperated with Anna Freud on the elimination of unhappiness among children. She wrote on the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency notably in The Psychoanalytical Approach to Juvenile Delinquency.