Anna Freud

Anna Freud was born the youngest of six children to Martha and Sigmund Freud December 3, 1895 in Vienna Austria. She was said to be "a lively child with a reputation for mischief" (1). For years she had followed in the footsteps of her year older sister Sophie and it was a relief to her when she had gotten married. She had attended the Cottage Lyceum in Vienna for schooling, which she finished in 1912. However her interest in her fathers work began in 1910 when he began to psychoanalyze her. Her real "involvement in psychoanalysis began in 1918"(1). "In 1912, She had not yet decided upon a career" (3) and taught in the elementary school for a short period of time. In 1914 "she traveled alone to England to improve her English and while she was there the war had broken out and she had become and alien enemy in her home country" (3). It seems that Anna Freud was closer with her father than she was her mother. She attended the International Psychoanalytic Congress at The Hague in 1920 with her father In 1922,she presented her paper "Beating Fantasies and Daydreams" to the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society and soon became a member. A year later she had "formed her own psychoanalytic practice and taught seminars at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Training Institute" (1). During the year of 1923 Sigmund Freud had developed cancer and his daughter became his nurse and means of care. While giving care to her father she made important moves in her career until they had to leave in 1938 due to Nazi invasion in which they fled to England. In between, major advancements occurred. In "1927 she became the General Secretary of the International Psychoanalytic Association during at which time she acted as her father's public representative until 1934 (3). Soon following this she became the director of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Training Institute and published many studies while there. In 1937, the year before they fled the country, Anna Dorothy Burlingham came upon. They were able to combine their charity with their own work through Edith Jackson, who "funded a nursery school for the children of the poor in Vienna"(1). 1938 came quickly however and she and her father were the only two left of the Freud family to flee from the Nazi's alive to England. Sigmund Freud had died in 1939. Anna Freud was not all interested in just theory. Her main interest manifests itself in child psychology where she devoted her energy to "the analysis of children and adolescents and to improving analysis"(1998). Her first experimentation with children came about in 1937 when she worked with Dorothy Burlingham at a nursery in Vienna for the poor. There were to major components that they observed while there. The first is that they experimented with the children’s feeding pattern. "They allowed the children to choose their own food"(3). The second came through giving children the "freedom to organize their own play"(1998). This, in turn, taught the children to "move freely and independently, eat independently, to speak, and express their preferences"(3). Unfortunately the school was soon closed due to Nazi invasion. Upon settling in London, Anna Freud took a job at the Hampstead Nursery until 1945. Two years later she and her counterpart Kate Friedlaender began the founding of Child Therapy Courses and a children's clinic which was added to the Hampstead Nursery. From the 1950's till her death, "Anna Freud traveled to the United States to lecture and visit friends"(1). Likewise at this time she began to write books and papers about her theory. One well-known book she wrote in 1965 Normality and Pathology in Childhood "summarized her work at the Hampstead clinic as well as other places"(3). received until her death many doctorates and honoraries. On October 9, 1982 Anna Freud died. As a tribute to her, the "Hampstead Clinic renamed itself the Anna Freud Center for her being a passionate and inspirational teacher"(1). Then in 1986, "her home for forty years was transformed into the Freud Museum"(1).