Anna Freud
(1895-1982)
Anna was the youngest of 6 children.
She lived in an apartment at Bergasse 19, in Vienna, until 1938 when the family finally left the country and moved to London.
Anna lived with her family for 43 years.
She had an extremely close relationship with her father.
Traveling companion
Patient of his at around age 14
Secretary
Confidante
Colleague
Nurse/ sympathetic listener
Education
She attended the Cottage Lyceum, near her home, in Vienna and graduated in 1912.
She was trained to be a teacher from age 19-21 at the Cottage Lyceum.
Teacher at the Cottage Lyceum
She taught for 5 years with so-called normal children.
Maria Montessori influenced her teaching.
Although she taught the children, she believed she also learned from them.
She considered herself to be a teacher her whole life.
Psychoanalyst
In 1922, she became a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society.
She also was a child psychoanalyst at this time.
In 1935, she was the director of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Training Institute.
Co-Founder of a Nursery School for children of the poor in Vienna (1937)
She was able to observe the children’s behavior and experiment with their feeding patterns.
It was closed in 1938 because Austria was being taken over by the Nazi’s, and the Freud’s had to move to London.
Co-Founder of Hampstead War Nursery (1939)
A foster care service set up for over 80 children of single-parent homes.
It helped children form attachments with the workers and with their mothers, whom they encouraged to visit often.
It was considered to be a psychological lifesaver.
Anna would analyze the children and try to plan solutions to their problems.
Co-Founder of Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic
In 1947, she set up a training center in Hampstead for English and American physicians, child therapists and lay people, in order for them to understand and treat children.
Five years later it became a children’s clinic.
In respect to Anna, the clinic changed the name to the Anna Freud Centre in 1952. It still exists in London and offers psychotherapy, family support, training, and research to continue the field of psychoanalysis.
Speaker
She held seminars, lectures, organized conferences, and was asked to present at many universities across the world.
Honorary doctorates from Clark University (1950)
Honorary medical doctorate from Vienna University
Honorary president of the International Psychoanalytical Association
Child Psychoanalysis
There are different forms of transference; therefore children shouldn’t be treated as adults.
Many Publications based on her theoretical approach to the psychoanalysis of children
Ego Psychology
The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936) was presented and dedicated to her father on his 80th birthday. She explained how and why the ego tries to rid itself of anxiety and unpleasant feelings. She also further explains how the id, ego, and super-ego balance each other out. A few of the defense mechanisms are repression, regression, rationalization, and projection.
References
Coles, R. (1992). Anna freud: The dream of psychoanalysis. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.; Reading, MA.
Freud Museum. Retrieved April 14, 2003 from http://www.freud.org.uk/index.html
The Anna Freud Centre. Retrieved April 14, 2003 from http://www.annafreudcentre.org/home.html
Thorne, B.M., & Henley, T.B. (2001). Psychoanalysis. Connections in the history and systems of psychology (2nd ed., pp. 422-455). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.