Anna Freud (1895-1982)

Born on 3 December 1895, Anna Freud was the youngest of Sigmund and Martha Freud's six children. She was a lively child with a reputation for mischief. Freud wrote to his friend Fliess in 1899: "Anna has become downright beautiful through naughtiness... She grew up somewhat in the shadow of her sister Sophie, who was 2 1/2 years older than her. When her rival married in 1913. Anna wrote to her father: "I am glad that Sophie is getting married, because the unending quarrel between us was horrible for me." Anna finished her education at the Cottage Lyceum in Vienna in 1912, but had not yet decided upon a career. In 1914 she travelled alone to England to improve her English. She was there when war was declared and thus became an "enemy alien". She had to return to Vienna, with the Austro-Hungarian ambassador and his entourage, via Gibraltar and Genoa. Later that year she began teaching at her old school, the Cottage Lyceum. A photo shows her with the 5th class of the school c.1918. One of her pupils later wrote: "This young lady had far more control over us than the older 'aunties'." Already in 1910 Anna had begun reading her father's work, but her serious involvement in psychoanalysis began in 1918, when her father started psychoanalyzing her. In 1920 they both attended the International Psychoanalytical Congress at The Hague. They now had both work and friends in common. One common friend was the writer and psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé, who was once the confidante of Nietzsche and Rilke and who was to become Anna Freud's confidante in the 1920s. Through her, the Freuds also met Rilke, whose poetry Anna Freud greatly admired. Her volume of his Buch der Bilder bears his dedication, commemorating their first meeting. Anna's literary interests paved the way for her future career. "The more I became interested in psychoanalysis," she wrote, "the more I saw it as a road to the same kind of broad and deep understanding of human nature that writers possess." In 1922 Anna Freud presented her paper "Beating Fantasies and Daydreams" to the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society and became a member of the society. In 1923 she began her own psychoanalytical practice with children and two years later was teaching a seminar at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Training Institute on the technique of child analysis. Her work resulted in her first book, a series of lectures for teachers and parents entitled: Introduction to the Technique of Child Analysis (1927: American 1928) Later she was to say of this period: "Back then in Vienna we were all so excited - full of energy: it was as if a whole new continent was being explored, and we were the explorers, and we now had a chance to change things..." In 1923 Sigmund Freud began suffering from cancer and became increasingly dependent on Anna's care and nursing. Later on, when he needed treatment in Berlin, she was the one who accompanied him there. His illness was also the reason why a "Secret Committee" was formed to protect psychoanalysis against attacks. Anna was a member, and like the others was given a ring as a token of trust. After her father's death she was to convert one of his rings into a brooch. The Roman intaglio bears the figure of Jupiter enthroned, crowned by Victory and with Minerva in attendance. From 1927 to 1934 Anna Freud was General Secretary of the International Psychoanalytical Association.