Anna Freud was a creative force for children and for all of psychoanalysis. She had the advantage and the burden of being the noble daughter of the creator of psychoanalysis, a man whose creative genius has left us with an enlarged view of man and his world. She embraced this enlarged view and the method that made it possible, elaborating and applying it with her own originality in the service of children and adults.
Her own genius encompassed psychoanalytic theory and practice, spanning the gap between with a concentration and lucidity that has been inspiring and demanding. Her search for truth about human development and functioning — the life of the mind — has been intense, sustained, and passionate with a logic and imagination that has been aesthetic as well as scientific.
From the beginning of her career, Anna Freud combined theoretical and practical perspectives. In her own words, she used every“… opportunity to maintain a close connection between theory and practice, to check constantly on theoretical ideas by practical application, and to widen practical handling and practical measures with a growth of theoretical knowledge.”
In addition to being the devoted, selfless daughter of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud as her own person was a bold investigator and model builder. From the creation of what may have been the first modern day care center for infants of poor families in Vienna in the 1920s to the establishment of the Hampstead Nurseries in war-torn London, Anna Freud's originality led to courageous, imaginative humanitarian responses in the service of children's needs. From these creative models of service, Anna Freud also constructed rigorous natural science investigations. Under her scientific and administrative leadership, her devoted coworkers joined her in making systemic observations, informed by psychoanalytic theory-building propositions that have advanced psychoanalysis as a science and at the same time outlined new research questions for psychoanalysts and the allied professions. Part of the beauty of her work has been its parsimony, as well as its effectiveness.
All of Anna Freud's teaching, research, and clinical work demonstrated her view of the unity of the human personality. Her individual papers and her books documented this view in a scholarly way with a special emphasis on the developing child. In her style of writing and teaching, she was unfailingly lucid, incisive, and persuasive. Her hallmark was an integration of this style and scientific rigor, often spiced with her charming wit from a background rich in the classics and folk tales.
Her Collected Writings in eight volumes provides us with a rich legacy of her scientific, clinical, and educational contributions. The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense, published in 1936, demonstrated her independent scholarship and genius. It was characteristic of her affection and loyalty that this psychoanalytic classic was prepared as a gift in honor of her father's 80th birthday.
She believed fervently in hard work and in the transformation of remembrance into understanding for the present and future. Her accomplishments were widely
acknowledged and formally expressed thourgh the many honorary doctorates and awards she received in the U.S.A. and Europe.
In collaborative scientific work, Anna Freud's love of truth was evident. She enjoyed sustained arguments about significant disagreements. Such discussions were intense, civil, never angry, with no awareness of discrepancies in experience or rank. Often she would bring in just the right folk tale or parable to illustrate her point. Such discussions were serious, a full exploration of the question involved, with the aim of clarifying the issue and of communicating about it clearly, persuasively, and economically.
It will take some time — and we should not be unseemly in our haste — to reflect on how much we counted on her and shall miss her. We have the opportunity and the challenge to carry on with what she has bequeathed to us through her many contributions as a pioneer in child psychoanalysis; as a major psychoanalytic theoretician, researcher, and educator; and as a brilliant innovator of new models of service and research for children in life crisis situations.
Though she had a long, spirited, and richly experienced life, Anna Freud was a very private person. Her compromises with privacy were only for the well-being of psychoanalytic education and scholarship. Little known was her zestful enjoyment of a good movie or play; a pleasant Chinese restaurant; the exercise and skill involved in horseback riding; the companionship of her dogs, Wolf, Coco, and Yofie; her exhilaration in being at the sea; and her pleasure in swimming and in driving an automobile in East Anglia or in her beloved Rathmore in Baltimore, Ireland. Her artistic talents were beautifully expressed in weaving, knitting, and crocheting.
Her personal courage was not as well known as her clinical and scholarly fortitude. After the Anschluss on March 11, 1938, she insisted on taking her father's place when the Nazis came to interrogate him at the Freud home in the Bergasse. After a long argument, she succeeded in persuading the Nazi officials to take her instead of her ailing, elderly father to the Gestapo office for interrogation.
In remembering and honoring Anna Freud, as we say goodbye to her, it is our privilege to hear her directly. In the obituary published in the London Observer, Sunday, October 10, 1982, her long-time friend and companion, Muriel Gardiner stated, “She wrote to me in 1977: ‘I get letters from strangers from time to time, urging me to write my memoirs, almost as if it were my duty to do it. But of course that is the last thing I would be able to do. I cannot share my feelings with the reading public, and there is too much feeling bound up with the past, and above all the part of the past in which others would be interested. So, I allow myself the privilege of taking it all with me.’”
Albert J. Solnit
New Haven