Anna Freud

Anna Freud        

           Anna Freud was Sigmund Freud’s youngest child out of six.  She was born on December 3, 1895 in Vienna, Austria.  Anna was very close to and greatly influenced by her father, but was by no means hidden in his shadow.  She started her early career as an elementary school teacher, but started translating her father’s work into German, and that is when she became very interested in psychoanalysis and child psychology.  She created the field of child psychoanalysis, which became her main area of expertise.  In 1923 she began her children’s psychoanalytic practice in Vienna, and became the chair of the Vienna Psycho-Analytic Society.  Two years later in 1925 she began teaching child analysis at the Psychoanalytical Training Institute.

            In 1938 Anna was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo, which led to her father’s decision to leave Austria for good and head for London.  She took care of her father until 1939, when he passed from cancer of the mouth.  In 1941 she opened the Hampstead War Nursery with Dorothy Tiffany-Burlingham as a home and psychoanalytic program to homeless children who were victims of the war.  The goal was for the kids to keep social interaction and have relationships in order to form attachments.

After the passing of her father, Anna Freud travelled to the United States on several occasions. She traveled to America to visit friends and give lectures. She even spent some time teaching at Yale Law School. Anna Freud is also responsible for setting up what is today referred to as the Freud Museum in London.  The museum is the house that the family moved to after leaving Vienna. It is in this house that Sigmund Freud died, along with all of his collectables and belongings.  These collectables were shipped from his home in Austria and recreated in the new house. It was Anna who stayed in the house after his death, and ultimately decided to turn the house into a museum when she was to pass away. After her death in 1982 the house was turned into a museum to commemorate the life and success of her father. The house was set up as not only a dedication to her father, but to society of Psychoanalysis. This is perhaps a tribute to the both the work that Anna and Sigmund Freud accomplished in their lifetimes. The Museum is openly available for the public to go and visit, and it still maintains its original setup.

http://www.freud.org.uk

This is a link to the Freud Museum in London. The site is complete with several images and explanations behind many of the important objects and antiquities in the home.

Picture: Inside Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, where four students traveled this past weekend!

Post by: Olivia Foley and Ben Saad