Famous Psychologist Anna Freud

A significant impact on the development of depth psychology had the younger daughter of Sigmund Freud - Anna Freud (1895 - 1982). Although her first investigation in psychoanalysis appeared in the 1930s, the most interesting work as psychoanalyst appeared later.

Anna Freud from early childhood have joined the research activities of her father, and served for many years as his secretary. In 1922 made ​​her first scientific paper, and was admitted to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. In 1938, after the occupation of Austria by the Nazis, she was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo, which provided additional justification for Freud to leave Vienna. Only she and Freud’s wife was allowed to emigrate with him. In London, she has paid great attention to moral support and care for her sick father.

After the death of Freud, Anna dedicated herself to the development of the psychoanalytic movement and the theory of depth psychology, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. The greatest attention was paid to it the formation of child analysis. She also became one of the authors of ego psychology. In 1952, she organized and headed Hampstead Child Therapy Courses, which she led up to 1982.

In 1936 the book “Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense“ were systematized Freud’s thinking about defense mechanisms, and showed their role in shaping the mental life. Then she began to develop ideas about the integrity of the ego and its self-independence of the id, the role of the mental life of man. These provisions form the basis of ego-psychology.

Her main works were dedicated to the study of ”problem children“, especially aggressive and disturbing. She believed that in the structure of personality of the child from the very beginning, aggressiveness appears as part of sexual life as an ”anal sadism.”

According to A. Freud, normal children (and adults) behavior suggests the existence of two main elements aspirations. In the normal behavior aggression is constrained by the libido. That fusion of libido and aggression should be considered normal and typical. Her ideas about the specificity of psychological crises and that emotions have an impact on the further development of the individual, are reflected in her later works, ”Normality and Pathology in Childhood: Assessments of Development (1965), “Beyond the Best Interests of the Child“ (1973)

Anna Freud turned his attention to the pathological manifestations of child aggression. Based on studies of the influence of psychic deprivation on child development, she came to the conclusion that such aggression occurs when abnormal conditions of the child (without parents, no family in the concentration camps, orphanages, boarding schools, etc.). The results of these studies were published in ”Infants Without Families Reports on the Hampstead Nurseries by Anna Freud” (1943), “War and Children“ (1943). She believed that aggression occurs because in these conditions, or entirely absent objects of love in the child’s environment, or those objects change frequently, or for some reason does not establish relations with these objects of love. Thus, aggressive (and disturbing) trends appear due to the fact that the libido is not developed or remained in the primary stage.

Based on these allegations, A. Freud concludes that in such cases, remedial work with children should focus on the development of the libido, the formation of attachment to other people, the development of in children a sense of security, not to overcome their aggressive reactions. Starting with the earliest work, “Introduction to Psychoanalysis: Lectures for Child Analysts and Teachers” (1922–1935) she established methods of child analysis, revealed the possibility of “play therapy“.