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Anna Freud

Reprinted by the kind permission of Maurice Bridgeland from his PIONEER WORK WITH MALADJUSTED CHILDREN, Staples Press (London), 1971.

The most extensive single body of theory related to the needs of therapeutic education is that of psychoanalysis. The significance of such theory to the needs of individuals developing through childhood, particularly to those with severe problems of adjustment, was realized and variously interpreted by pioneer workers. Lane moved from Freud and Jung in an attempt to justify his idiosyncratic practice. Neill proceeded from Freud to Reich to put a conceptual gloss on his own ideas about freedom. (11) Shaw found Melanie Klein's interpretation of psychoanalysis most useful in interpreting the disturbances of adolescent boys. But despite the brief but important work of Susan Isaacs at the Malting House School psychoanalytic concepts percolated very slowly through education and even pioneers such as Lyward, Wills and Dr Fitch, although acknowledging the theoretical value of psychoanalysis, and sometimes using its terminology, subscribed to the convention that in their institutions 'psychoanalysis was not done but lived'.

As in so many other things the rapid development of psychoanalytically-based child psychology and its application to psychotherapy and therapeutic education was largely a product of the experiences of the Second World War. Before the problem of coping with the disturbed child within a disintegrating and inadequate educational structure became a national concern, teachers were able to reject Freudian concepts as repulsive, alien, impracticable ideas promoted only by foreigners and 'cranks'. This position was reinforced by the Freudians themselves since they tended to develop exclusive cults and mystiques into which only believers were fully initiated.

The advent of war not only generalized the problem but helped to disseminate information of psychoanalytical theory and practice with the arrival in this country of a large number of important Continental Freudians. Of these the most significant for education was clearly Anna Freud herself.

Since the 1920s Anna Freud had endeavoured to demonstrate to teachers the application of psychoanalytical theories to 'pedagogics, or the science of upbringing and education'.(12) While admitting that 'psychoanalysis, whenever it has come into contact with pedagogy, has always expressed the wish to limit education' (13) by loosening the control imposed by educators over normal child development, she sought to increase understanding and to expand the role of the teacher to include therapy. The task of the teacher was 'to allow to each stage in the child's life the right proportion of instinct- gratification and instinct-restriction'. This was no plea for unrestricted permissivism but its success did depend on the teacher recognizing the importance of the individual and also the general psychodynamic framework of child development.

Anna Freud saw psychoanalysis as doing these things for pedagogics: 'In the first place it is well qualified to offer a criticism of existing educational methods. In the second place, the teacher's knowledge of human beings is extended, and his understanding of the complicated relations between the child and the educator is sharpened by psychoanalysis, which gives us a scientific theory of the instincts, of the Unconscious and of the Libido. Finally, as a method of practical treatment, in the analysis of children, it endeavours to repair the injuries which are inflicted upon the child during the process of education'. (14)

Another way in which Anna Freud's work made psychoanalytical procedures more available for use in therapeutic education lay in the emphasis which she put on the 'ego' and its development rather than on the unconscious working of the 'id'. She directed attention to the actual behaviour of the child (rather than to analysis of concealed dream symbolism) and to the recognition of the existence and effect of defence-mechanisms, (such as phantasy, denial and indentification,) in overt acts. (15) This approach was partly the result of the obvious difficulties of applying the normal techniques of psychoanalysis to small children but it had the satisfactory effect of making psychoanalytical theory more communicable and more relevant to teachers.

Nevertheless, had Anna Freud stayed in Austria she might have tried in vain to communicate her message to English teachers resistant to the name of Freud and generally unsympathetic to psychological formulations. Her practical work during the war at the Hampstead Nurseries gave her opportunity for close study, disseminated her views and demonstrated her practice. It was, therefore, an event of great importance in therapeutic education in England and indeed in the whole sphere of the education of young children in this country.

The Children's Rest Centre in Hampstead was set up largely by a group of highly trained Continental refugees with four main aims: to repair both physical and psychological damage done to children by the Blitz, to prevent further harm, to do intensive research on the psychological effects of violence and separation, and 'to instruct people interested in the forms of education based on psychological knowledge of the child; and generally to work out a pattern of nursery life which can serve as a model for peacetime education'. (16)

The three nurseries (two residential, one day) provided a unique opportunity for the study of children under stress. The 138 children, ranging in age from one week to ten years, reported on in 'Young Children in Wartime', 1942, were selected only by circumstance, had suffered varying experiences of separation and deprivation, and were under the care and intensive observation of a staff consisting of 'highly trained workers in the field of medicine, psychology, education, nursing and domestic science'. The report which emerged was brief, objective, lucid and free from jargon. It makes no direct reference to psychoanalytical theory. Its impact was, therefore, very direct.

Anna Freud's main observation was that disturbance in the child was seldom derived directly from environmental causes such as bombing, living in shelters or being injured. As long as Mother was present the young child scarcely appeared to notice such events, which produced anxiety only if they caused anxiety in others or were used as symbolic representations of the child's own inner fears, e.g. of punishment for guilt. On the other hand although being trapped under a heap of rubble in a burning building might not be traumatic, a comparatively brief separation from Mother frequently was.

Many of the children at the Hampstead nurseries were the casualties not of war but of evacuation. For many, placement at Hampstead (although still in London) was their first experience of evacuation and separation from Mother. Observation of the children's reactions in these unique circumstances enabled Anna Freud and her co-workers to base their theories of child development firmly on experience. In the first few months of life the baby, although utterly dependent on a mother-figure, did not appear to require a particular individual to fulfil that function and rapidly re-adjusted after separation. After this period and until about three years of age the effect of separation was found to be particularly traumatic. Mother had become a personal love object, sole provider of pleasure and pain without whom the child became lost. He was, perhaps, plunged into a period of 'mourning' in which he became depressed, noncommunicative and frequently physically unwell. If the separation occurred after about three years of age the children were more capable of understanding and externalizing their grief, could more easily identify with parent substitutes but were also at a stage when negative feelings towards apparently rejecting parents could either be strongly expressed in a reciprocal rejection or internalized as strong feelings of guilt. The observed effects of 'maternal deprivation' have been too well documented to require further elaboration (17) but the significance of Anna Freud's evidence has seldom been given its full weight. Her 'sample was composed of 'normal' children, fairly randomly selected by the hand of war, a large group expertly observed. Her evidence did not rest on institutionalized children or on laboratory animals and her endeavour was to describe what happened rather than to advance any particular viewpoint at this stage.

Her study was, however, more than an account of the problems arising from a temporary wartime situation and was important to subsequent therapeutic education in that it gave a theoretical framework of use to those working with children deprived of maternal love by other forms of separation and rejection. As was consistent with her general approach Anna Freud worked from a study of overt behaviour towards an understanding of its origin. She observed the mechanisms by which children either expressed, or defended themselves against, the pain of separation. Some found relief in speech, often after considerable periods of silence. For others play was a more available form of expression and of therapy. Many, more seriously disturbed, expressed their maladjustment in bizarre behaviour or in neurotic regression to more infantile modes. Enuresis, compulsive eating, destructive aggression, autoerotic forms of gratification and temper tantrums all expressed a rejection of a society from which love had been withdrawn. Of particular interest in our present stage of concern with the condition known as autism is Anna Freud's observation of children whose reaction to separation and rejection was 'abnormal withdrawal of emotional interest from the outside world'. She describes one girl who, although she had no experience of airraids, was moved into six different temporary homes between the age of two and three. She was hysterical and impossible to handle. 'She would not go to bed, could not sleep, would not eat, fought against being bathed, washed, dressed or undressed. She had fear of going downstairs, of leaving the house, of entering again through the front door. Sometimes she would like to play with other children, at other times she screamed with fear when they approached her.' Eventually she developed an undiagnosable neurotic illness. 'Hysterical symptoms alternate with phobic behaviour and compulsive mechanisms. The main feature is her withdrawal from the interests of the real outer world. Her expression is always worried, her glance fixed and stony.' (18)

On the basis of her experience Anna Freud stressed the importance of the careful planning of necessary separation, of preliminary experience in day nurseries, the rejection of the popular idea that children should not be visited for the first fortnight after evacuation, and above all the necessity of involving parents as closely, fully and continually as possible.

The effect of Anna Freud's wartime work, her subsequent publications, and her continuing influence as a great teacher of teachers and therapists is incalculable. The effect on certain practitioners of therapeutic education was immediate.

REFERENCES

(11) NEILL, A.S. The Free Child, Herbert Jenkins, London, 1953. [Return to Text]

(12) FREUD, A. The Psychoanalytical Treatment of Children. Imago, London, 1946. [Return to Text]

(13) ----- Introduction to Psychoanalysis for Teachers, p 93. Allen & Unwin, London 1931 [Return to Text]

(14) Ibid. p 104 [Return to Text]

(15) FREUD, A. The Ego Mechanisms of Defence, Hogarth, London, 1936. [Return to Text]

(16) BURLINGHAM, D. and FREUD, A. Young Children in Wartime, pp 11-12. Allen & Unwin (for the New Era), London, 1942. [Return to Text]

(17) BOWLBY, J. Maternal Care and Mental Health, World Health Organisation, Geneva. 1951. [Return to Text]

(18) BURLINGHAM, D. and FREUD, A. op. cit., pp 74-5. [Return to Text]

© Maurice Bridgeland

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