Freud's Daughter: Anna Freud
Anna Freud was the youngest child of Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays. She had a lonely childhood and felt left out by her siblings. She was jealous of her sister Sophie and Sophie's relationship to their mother. She never married or had children and was very close with Freud. He is quoted as saying that he was "'as addicted to his youngest daughter as he was to his cigars'" (Schultz & Schultz, 2012, p. 322). He called her his "Antigone," after the daughter who cared for her blind father, Oedipus. Anna was her father's constant companion and the one who took care of him, along with her mother, later in life when he was ill with cancer.
Her father psychoanalyzed her but did not keep records or notes of the therapy. This therapy occurred when she was twenty-two and lasted for four years, six sessions a week. Freud was greatly criticized for this and these sessions were called incestuous, among other things. Although the psychoanalytic sessions were not recorded, it is believed that her psychoanalytic sessions were the reason Freud took a deeper look at the mother's role in a child's pre-oedipal stage instead of just the father's role.
Anna read her first scholarly paper at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1924 about dreams. These dreams included masturbation, sexual relations with a father and daughter, and beatings. She read it as though it was about a patient, although it was said to be about her own dreams. She also became very close with Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham, which Freud considered inappropriate. He believed it was a sexual relationship, even though her biographer disagreed strongly. Freud's ideas that his daughter was sexually involved with a woman most likely contributed to the Oedipus Complex and to his ideas about female bisexuality.
Freud was increasingly proud of Anna's intellect and her dislike for feminine activities. He said that young Anna had a "masculine appetite and aggression." He also said that she was "beautiful with naughtiness." These observations of Anna no doubt helped develop his theories of the Oedipus Complex.
After her father passed away, Anna continued his work. She developed a love for psychoanalysis from reading his work and went on to be the founder of child psychoanalysis, now known as Ego Psychology. She also extended the list of defense mechanisms that many now associate with psychoanalysis.
Sources: Anna Freud. Retrieved from http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/women.html.
Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2012). A History of Modern Psychology (10 ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Slipp, S. (1993). The Freudian Mystique: Freud, Women, and Feminism. New York and London: New York University Press.
Her father psychoanalyzed her but did not keep records or notes of the therapy. This therapy occurred when she was twenty-two and lasted for four years, six sessions a week. Freud was greatly criticized for this and these sessions were called incestuous, among other things. Although the psychoanalytic sessions were not recorded, it is believed that her psychoanalytic sessions were the reason Freud took a deeper look at the mother's role in a child's pre-oedipal stage instead of just the father's role.
Anna read her first scholarly paper at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1924 about dreams. These dreams included masturbation, sexual relations with a father and daughter, and beatings. She read it as though it was about a patient, although it was said to be about her own dreams. She also became very close with Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham, which Freud considered inappropriate. He believed it was a sexual relationship, even though her biographer disagreed strongly. Freud's ideas that his daughter was sexually involved with a woman most likely contributed to the Oedipus Complex and to his ideas about female bisexuality.
Freud was increasingly proud of Anna's intellect and her dislike for feminine activities. He said that young Anna had a "masculine appetite and aggression." He also said that she was "beautiful with naughtiness." These observations of Anna no doubt helped develop his theories of the Oedipus Complex.
After her father passed away, Anna continued his work. She developed a love for psychoanalysis from reading his work and went on to be the founder of child psychoanalysis, now known as Ego Psychology. She also extended the list of defense mechanisms that many now associate with psychoanalysis.
Sources: Anna Freud. Retrieved from http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/women.html.
Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2012). A History of Modern Psychology (10 ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Slipp, S. (1993). The Freudian Mystique: Freud, Women, and Feminism. New York and London: New York University Press.