Anna Freud: biography and work of Sigmund Freud's successor

When talking about psychoanalysis it is almost inevitable to think specifically about Sigmund Freud, a historical figure who, beyond assuming the beginning of a current of thought, has become one of the most popular and recognizable icons.

However, the psychodynamic current, which is the branch of non-scientific psychology that Freud founded, had already from the beginning of the century many other representatives who defended a view of the psyche significantly different from that of the father of the psychoanalysis. For example, this is the case of Anna Freud. Today we explain his life, his work and his most relevant theories.

Psychoanalysis: Freud, Jung and Adler

Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung are two of these examples. They were exceptional thinkers who did not take long to move away from the proposals of their mentor and came to found different currents within psychodynamics (individual psychology and deep psychology, respectively).

However, part of Sigmund Freud's successors claimed the works of his master and worked embracing the most of the proposals of this, to expand and qualify the ideas related to psychoanalysis "classic".

Anna Freud, the daughter of Sigmund Freud, was one of these people.

The early years of Anna Freud

Anna Freud was born in Vienna in 1895, and she was the last daughter of the marriage formed between Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays. At that stage, her father was devising the theoretical foundations of psychoanalysis, so from a very young age she came into contact with the world of psychodynamics. In fact, during the course of World War I she used to attend the meetings of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Circle. Shortly after, between 1918 and 1920, she began to psychoanalyze with her father.

It is at this time that Anna Freud stops working as a governess and decides to dedicate herself to psychoanalysis. Specificshe, she dedicated herself to psychoanalysis with boys and girls. Between 1925 and 1930, Anna Freud began to give seminars and conferences to train psychoanalysts and educators, convinced that the psychoanalytic theory and practice created by her Father could be very important during the first years of people's lives, which is when social norms are internalized and traumas can be fixed determinants of it. She also publishes her book of Introduction to Psychoanalysis for Educators.

It is also at this time that one of the most important train collisions of the first years of psychoanalysis arises: the theoretical battle between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, another of the few European psychoanalyst women of the beginning of the century. Both held completely opposite ideas in many aspects related to the evolution of the psyche with age and procedures to be followed in dealing with children and adolescents, and both received a lot of coverage media. Anna Freud also received the support of her father.

Taking psychoanalysis further

In the 1930s, Anna Freud began to revise the Freudian theory of the psychic structures of the id, the ego and the superego. Unlike Sigmund Freud, very interested in the id, the unconscious and the hidden and mysterious mechanisms that according to him govern behavior, Anna Freud was much more pragmatic and she preferred to focus on what makes us adapt to real contexts and everyday situations.

This type of motivation made her focus her studies on the self, which according to Sigmund Freud and she herself is the structure of the psyche directly connected to the environment, reality. In other words, if Sigmund Freud proposed explanations for how the ego and the superego had the role of preventing the id from imposing In her interests, Anna Freud understood the ego as the most important thing in the psyche, being the part that acts as a referee between the superego and it. From this approach, the so-called ego psychology arose shortly after, whose most important representatives were Erik erikson and Heinz Hartmann.

But let's go back to Anna Freud and her ideas about the self.

Anna Freud, the self and defense mechanisms

In the mid-30s, Anna Freud published one of her most important books: The self and defense mechanisms.

In this work he tried to describe in more detail the functioning of the ego structures that his father had spoken about years before: the ego, the id and the superego. The it, according to these ideas, is governed by the pleasure principle and seeks immediate satisfaction of its needs and drives, Meanwhile he superegoassesses whether we are getting closer to or away from an ideal image of ourselves who only acts nobly and conforms perfectly to social norms, while the me He is between the other two and tries not to harm us from the conflict between them.

Anna Freud highlights the importance of the self as an escape valve that makes sure that the tension accumulated by an id that has to be constantly repressed does not put us in danger. The ego, which is the only one of the three psychic structures that has a realistic view of things, tries to entertain the id so that its demands are delayed until the end. moment in which the fact of satisfying them does not put us at risk, while negotiating with the superego so that our self-image is not seriously damaged at the same time as we do this.

Defense mechanisms are, for Anna Freud, the tricks that the ego uses to deceive the id and offer him small symbolic victories, as he cannot satisfy his needs in the world real. A) Yes, the defense mechanism of denial is to make ourselves believe that the problem that makes us feel bad simply does not exist; the defense mechanism of displacement causes us to redirect an impulse towards a person or object with which we can "retaliate", while and rationalization consists of substituting an explanation about what has happened for another that makes us feel better (you can see more defense mechanisms on this article).

She laying the foundations of Freudian theory

Anna Freud did not stand out for being especially groundbreaking, rather the opposite: she accepted the bulk of Sigmund Freud's ideas and expanded them in relation to the functioning of the id, the ego and the superego.

However, her explanations served to give a more pragmatic and not so dark approach to psychoanalysis. Whether or not her clinical and educational approaches are really useful is a totally different matter.