Anna Freud, Dr.

Anna Freud was the daughter of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. After completing teacher training, she taught at a private elementary school from 1917 to 1920. Without ever pursuing formal university studies, she was trained as a psychoanalyst by her father. Julius Wagner-Jauregg allowed her to take part in ward rounds in the psychiatric department of the Vienna General Hospital, and from 1920 she took part in meetings of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Association. She gave her first lecture there in 1922, which she had prepared together with her friend Lou Andreas-Salome.

From 1923, she ran her own psychoanalytic practice alongside that of her father. After his illness, she took on many of his responsibilities, looked after joint patients and traveled to congresses and meetings for him. She also specialized in child analysis and was able to complete her work "Introduction to the Technique of Child Analysis" in 1927. This book enabled her to establish herself as an independent scientist. Her main work "The Ego and Defense Mechanisms" (1936) had a decisive influence on developmental psychology.

Anna Freud had to leave the country with her father in 1938 and settled in England. After her father's death, she arranged for his "Collected Works" to be published. She continued her work in the field of therapeutic care for children and founded a children's clinic in 1952, which she ran until her death. Even before this, she had founded a course of training in child analysis, which she regarded as her life's work.

Anna Freud received numerous awards and honorary titles, including an honorary doctorate from the Vienna Medical Faculty (1972).

She was honored in 1998 by the naming of one of the "Gates of Remembrance" on the campus of the University of Vienna after her and her father (Freud Gate, Spitalgasse Mitte).

Weblinks

• BiografiA – Biografische Datenbank und Lexikon österreichischer Frauen: Anna Freud
• Wikipedia: Anna Freud
• Psyalpha – Wissensplattform für Psychoanalyse: Anna Freud
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Anna Freud
• Österreichische Mediathek: Vorträge von Anna Freud in Wien