Anna Freud - Definition and Overview

Anna Freud (December 3, 1895 - October 9, 1982), was the daughter of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and his wife Martha Bernays (1861-1951), a British psychoanalyst, and pioneer of child psychoanalysis.

She was born in Vienna, Austria, and educated at Cottage Lyceum there. In 1914 she travelled to England, then returned to teach at the Cottage Lyceum. She entered psychoanalysis with her father in 1918, published her first paper on psychoanalysis in 1922, and entered practice as a psychoanalyst in 1923. She tended her father during his cancer (which was diagnosed in 1923), and took over many of his functions as he became less able to discharge them. She became General Secretary of the International Psychoanalytical Association and director of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Training Institute. The Freuds fled Austria for England following the Nazi anschluss: Sigmund Freud died in 1939. Anna Freud became more and more involved in child psychology, and her theoretical differences with Melanie Klein caused much controversy within the British Psycho-analytical Society. She founded several orphanages and studied the effects of war on children. After her death, her house at 20 Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead, which was Sigmund Freud's last residence as well, was converted into a museum; it also features an Anna Freud room.

External links

• Anna Freud Biography and Theories (http://brainmeta.com/personality/annafreud.php)
• Freud Museum London (http://www.freud.org.uk/)
• short biography of Anna Freud (http://www.freud.org.uk/fmanna.htm)