Anna Freud
Who is Anna Freud ?
Anna Freud (1895-1982) was born in Víena (Austria). She was the youngest of Sigmund Freud‘s six children. Anna studied pedagogy and worked as a teacher, but later on she became psychoanalyst and dedicated herself to the Psychoanalysis of children, being a pioneer in this field.
Anna Freud theories on the analysis of children were published in a small work entitled “Introduction to the technique of psychoanalysis of children“, where she raised a criticism of the theories of Melanie Klein, disagreement that lasted forever.
In 1936 she published his most important work entitled “The Ego and defense mechanisms“.
During the Second World War, already exiled in London, Anna Freud founded the Hampstead nurseries where she studied children separated from their families; The result of these studies were hers two works “War and children” and “Infants without families“, written together with Dorothy Burlingham and in which she talks about the emotional impact of mother-child separation.
Other publications of Anna Freud are:
1 “On the fact of losing and being lost“,
2- “Normality and pathology in childhood“.
In 1950, Anna Freud traveled to Clark University, where his father had also been invited years before, where he gave a lecture entitled “The Contribution of Psychoanalysis to Genetic Psychology“, and she was honored as Doctor Honoris Causa.
The honors and recognitions continued in subsequent years, and thus she also received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa for the Universities of Víena, Columbia, Harvard and Frankfurt.
Anna Freud death was on October 9, 1982 in London, the city where she lived since her departure from Vienna because of the persecution of Nazism.
(Edited by Dr. María Moya Guirao, MD)