Daughter of the renowned Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud was President of the Institute of Psychoanalytic Training in Vienna, between 1925 and 1938. Later she would have to flee to London because of Nazism. On 1951 founded the Hampstead Clinic, center for treatment, research and training in child psychotherapy.
Anna Freud was strongly opposed to the theories of Melanie Klein, especially in relation to the exploration of the Oedipus complex. Anna believed that children's relationships with their parents were jeopardized if their feelings for them were analyzed.
Anna Freud's involvement with her father's work began when she was fourteen years old. By then used to frequent the Committee of the Seven Rings. This consisted of Sigmund Freud, Hans Sachs, Sandor Ferenczi, Karl Abraham, Otto Rank, Ernest Jones and Max Eitingon.
Freud's daughter completed her studies in pedagogy, thus becoming a teacher. He taught at Cottage Lyceum between 1914 and 1920, during the First World War. Left the teaching when sick with tuberculosis. Next, we will review the biography and professional career of Anna Freud.
The neurologist Sigmund Freud, considered the father of psychoanalysis, had six children. The last was Anna Freud, born in Vienna on December 3, 1895. Anna felt somewhat inferior, but I was a brave and tenacious girl. In their family they expected that only the men would dedicate themselves to studying.
During adolescence he devoted himself to analyzing his father's work in detail. As an adult, he entered the circle of his disciples. Anna became a teacher, as she was not expected to go to college or become a doctor.
Young Anna Freud followed her father throughout the First World War. On 1913 first approached the psychoanalytic movement, on a trip to London. In this he was introduced to the core of Sigmund Freud's relationships with Ernest Jones.
Anna was courted by Jones, which upset Loe Kann, who was in analysis with Freud. This upset Anna's father, who had words with Jones and he forbade his daughter this relationship.
From that moment on, Sigmund Freud began a fight against all his daughter's suitors. Forty years later, Jones confessed to Anna Freud that he still loved her.
After the premature death of one of his sisters and the marriage of another, Anna took the reins of the home. Freud analyzed his daughter on two occasions, once between 1918 and 1920 and another in 1922 and 1924.
Sigmund knew that, with this analysis, he had succeeded in reinforcing his daughter's love for him. On the other hand, he confessed to Lou Andreas that he was as incapable of giving up Anna as tobacco.
Anna Freud chose as confidants Max Eitingon and Lou Andreas-Salomé, who would perform an analytical role. The first tried to detach her from her father, and the second pushed her to assume the situation. Anna gave meaning to her existence as a woman and head of school of the Freudian movement.
Sigmund and Anna Freud exchanged approximately three hundred letters from both sides. Anna became part of the movement through child psychonalysis. In 1922 he presented his first work "Ghosts and daydreams of a beaten child". He did it before the Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung.
As early as 1927, Anna Freud would present her main work, "The psychoanalytic treatment of children". In parallel, he decided to edit his father's works, the “Gesammelte Schriften”, completed in 1924.
In 1928 she was chosen as director of the new institute of psychoanalysis in Vienna, which had just opened its doors. In this way, she assumed the institutional responsibilities that would make her the great representative of Viennese orthodoxy..
His great rival was Melanie Klein, who had undertaken the great restructuring of Sigmund Freud's work on a theoretical level.
Anna Freud and Melanie Klein never reached an agreement. Both were representatives of two divergent currents within the International Psychoanalytical Association. Anna surrounded herself with the most prominent Viennese disciples of the first hour, and created the Kinderseminar in 1925. That is, the Children's Seminar.
After some unfortunate experiences, attempts were made to train therapists who could apply the principles of psychoanalysis to the early childhood education. By then she would meet her great friend Dorothy Burlingham, through which she would fulfill her wish of motherhood.
With great dedication, Anna Freud would take care of Dorothy's four children. All four had mental problems, some more serious and others less. Anna acted as a mother, educator and analyst for all of them.
Thus, Anna Freud created a special school for Dorothy's children. He would do it with Peter Blos and Eva Rosenfeld, Yvette Guilbert's niece. Other children of patients who were undergoing analysis would later attend this school.
For analysts who revolved around Freud and the Burlingham family in Vienna, the psychonalysis was a religion. So wrote Peter Heller, who claimed that school was a progressive and elitist experience. At school they would take charge of the education of the children of parents who were under analysis. This also in the words of Peter Heller.
Anna Freud would continue to follow her father's guidelines since Herbert Graf's cure. For Anna the child was too fragile to be tested true. That is why he upheld the principle of cure under the responsibility of the family and parents. And more generally, of institutions related to education.
For Anna Freud the Oedipus complex it should not be examined too precisely in the child. For this he alleged the lack of maturity of the superego. The analytical approach should be integrated into the educational action. The weak point of this doctrine was the non-existent reflection on the relationship between the child and the mother. For Anna Freud, only the bond with the father counted.
Therefore, for Anna the pedagogy of the self prevailed above unconscious exploration. After the break with Otto Rank, Anna Freud was admitted to take his place in the Secret Committee..
This fact made Anna Freud feel at last among the elite of the analytic cause. This brought her closer to her father. And from that moment on, Anna would become custodian of Freudian orthodoxy.
As early as 1937, Anna opened the boarding school for poor children that she called Jackson Nursery. And this because this dream would come true thanks to Edith Jackson's investment. It was about an American millionaire who traveled to Vienna for Freud to analyze her.
It was a project directed by Anna, and oriented towards children under two years of age. The idea was to study the early stages of children's lives, through direct observation. The requirement for the study of these children is that they be indigent families.
Nazism made its entry into Austria, and this would force the experience to be interrupted. Anna Freud had to emigrate with her entire family, settling in London in 1938. She would be accompanied by many Viennese who would eventually go into exile in the United States.
This would not sit well with the followers of Klein, who had been defending his theories in the British Psychoanalytical Society for years. This stream had completely transformed classical theories of Freud. English psychoanalysts followed a completely different line of thought for all intents and purposes..
However, by then Anna had published her main work, "The I- And the defense mechanisms". The theories expounded in it were the complete opposite of those defended by the Kleinians. The battle was served, especially after the death of Freud and the beginning of the Great Controversies in 1941.
Anna Freud would approach the positions of Ego Psychology, taking up the notion of defense. This would be the starting point for conceiving a psychoanalysis no longer centered on the id. Instead the adaptation of the self to reality would be sought.
Herein lies the importance of defense mechanisms, rather than defense itself. This other was very successful in the United States, and would be the origin of anna Freudism, This would be the second most represented current in the International Psychoanalytical Association.
Every day more tired by the controversies, and disappointed by the course that the analytical movement had taken. This is how Anna Freud showed herself at that time, although she kept many of her friends who still loved her. Some of these friends were Ernst Kris, Marianne Kriss, René Spitz, Heinz Hartmann and Richard Sterba.
At that time Anna Freud was living in the residence of 20 Maresfield Gardens, later the Freud museum. I continue his activity for childhood founding the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic in 1952.
After her father's death, Anna became even more focused on work. During World War II he organized a center for homeless children. These were children rather than refugees. The nursery was given the name Hampstead War Nursery, which operated within the Hampstead Clinic in London. In this center psychological support was also given to these children.
After the war, Anne Freud continued working with children. Thanks to all the research at this stage, I could later publish various studies on the child psychoanalysis.
Anna began delegating duties to the Hampstead Clinic beginning in 1963. In 1976 I would definitely abandon the direction of the center, having been traveling with Dorothy.
To ensure the continuity of her father's work, Anne Freud he dedicated himself to publishing his works and archives. And not only those of Sigmund Freud, but also those of the rest of his family. As early as the 1970s, she was still mothering Dorothy's children. Two of them would die in tragic circumstances.
As early as 1990 Peter Heller, who had become a professor of literature, published his recollections of the analysis with Anna Freud. Peter was born in Vienna in 1920, and had been treated by Anna between 1929 and 1932. Years later he married Tinky, Dorothy's daughter, and spent many years on Kris's couch. Thanks to your story you can relive everything that happened between 1920 and 1936.
During those years, Anna and Sigmund Freud had mixed things related to the couch, family and private life. Peter made reference to Anna's suffocating nature in her maternal role. Instead, in his doctrine did not have in mind the link with Sigmund Freud.
Anna died in London in 1982. She had received full honors, but had not been able to understand the evolution of the psychoanalytic movement. He did so after having faced the uproar raised by those who defended revisionist historiography. This took place because of the publication of Sigmund's letters to Wilhelm Fliess.
Regarding the death of psychoanalysis, Anna Freud stated that predicting the death of psychoanalysis was perhaps fashionable. But what for her the only smart answer was Mark Twain's when a newspaper announced his death by mistake. The writer had said that the news of his death was "greatly exaggerated." According to Anna Freud, psychoanalysis does its best when attacked, in many ways.
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Ferrer Valero, Sandra (2016-10-30). "Psychoanalyzing children, Anna Freud (1895-1982)". Women in History. http://www.mujeresenlahistoria.com/2016/10/anna-freud.html
Guerri, Marta (2017-05-09). "The case of Anna O. and the origin of Psychoanalysis". Psychoactive. https://www.psicoactiva.com/blog/caso-anna-freud-origen-del-psicoanalisis/
Figueroba, Alex (2017-07-23). "The 'Anna O.' and Sigmund Freud ”. Psychology and Mind. https://psicologiaymente.net/clinica/caso-anna-o-sigmund-freud
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