ANNA FREUD

Anna Freud

Anna Freud

Introduction

Anna Freud, the daughter of Martha Bernays Freud and the famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1895. Although she never developed a strong bond with her mother or siblings, she had a good relationship with her nanny, Josefine Cihlarz (Peters, 2005). In 1901, she attended a private elementary school and soon developed a deep interest in reading and writing. By 1909, a close relationship with her father was developing. He even allowed her to attend the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society meetings with him. After graduating from high school in 1912, she spent a period of time with her grandmother in Sicily.

Upon successful completion of her teacher's examination in 1915, Freud began teaching elementary school at the Cottage Lyceum. Around the same period of time, she began editing her father's works. Between 1918 and 1922, she was psychoanalyzed by her father. She presented some of the results to the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society in the fall of 1922 and became a member of that society.

After Sigmund Freud was diagnosed with jaw cancer in 1923, Anna became his caretaker. She continued editing his works, saw many of his patients, and began her own child psychoanalysis practice. In 1925, she took over the production of the psychoanalytic publication Verlag and became the secretary of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. By that time, she was heavily involved in child psychoanalysis. In 1927, she published her first book, Einfuhrung in die Technik der Kinderanalyse (Introduction to the Technique of Child Analysis, 1975) (Midgley, 2007). Freud and some of her close friends organized the first day nursery for children in Vienna. Between 1934 to 1936, Freud expanded her child psychoanalysis to the adolescent years. She published her most influential study in 1936, Das Ich und die Abwehrmechanismen (The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, 1937) (ibid), in which she classified the operation of the ego.

Following the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938, Anna Freud and her family fled to London. The following year, her father passed away. During World War II, she cofounded and directed the Hampstead Nurseries, a home for orphaned children in London. She observed the impact on children caused by the deprivation of parental care and reported her findings in Infants Without Families: The Case for and Against Residential Nurseries. Between 1947 and 1952, she cofounded the Hampstead Child Therapy Course and Clinic. She directed its affairs until her death in 1982 (Mayes & Cohen, 2009).

In the 1950's, Freud lectured on child psychology and continued her writings on that topic, as well as on child education and legal rights. She traveled regularly to the United States to lecture and teach. In the 1960's, she taught seminars on crime and family at the Yale School of Law, which led to a joint publication with Joseph Goldstein and Albert J. Solnit titled Beyond the Best Interests of the Child.

Discussion

Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychoanalysis, most popularly known for his theory of the Oedipus complex, required an Antigone to guide him ...