On Anna Freud

The Academy Historical Committee arranged for a panel to be held on the life and works of Anna Freud. Her recent biographer Elizabeth Young-Bruehl was invited to be a panel participant but had to decline.

Peter Heller, the first speaker, was in child analysis with Anna Freud from ages nine to twelve. He had also attended the Burlingham-Rosenfeld private school for children in analysis and had subsequently married his classmate Katrina “Tinky” Burlingham, Dorothy Burlingham's youngest daughter. Heller admittedly has ambivalent feelings towards both Anna Freud and psychoanalysis. He read two of Anna Freud's letters to Eva Rosenfeld which illustrated the “girlish” part of Anna Freud's personality which was rarely revealed.

Sophie Freud Lowenstein, the next speaker, elaborated on the theme that Anna Freud was much more than just her father's daughter. Sophie's mother had married Sigmund Freud's son Martin. Sophie had the unique opportunity of actually living with Anna Freud after Dorothy Burlingham's death in 1979. She pointed out that Anna never overcame the theoretical restraints imposed on her by having to remain loyal to her father's libido theory; to have liberated herself from Sigmund's metapsychological underpinnings would have been a betrayal of her father's trust—something that Anna could never have done.

Anna Freud's most creative original work included her psychological diagnostic assessment of children as well as her suggested lines of normal development. Sophie greatly admired how at the end of a case conference Anna would summarize the clinical findings using “common sense” as an appropriate framework.

One difference which Sophie had with Anna Freud concerned her conclusions about the amount of separation anxiety shown by the English children removed from their families in World War II because of German bombing. Sophie believed that Anna overstated the amount of separation anxiety and understated their ability to make new life adjustments. Anna Freud apparentl