History of Modern Psychology: Anna Freud

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Male visionaries dominated in the philosophical contributions to the psychology as a formal discipline; however, many prominent women pioneered major roles in psychology history between 1850 and 1950 (Goodwin, 2005). Freud Sigmund was not only among the Freudian to build credibility in psychology field, this is because Anna Freud-her youngest daughter took career in psychology and made important contributions in the history of psychology. The paper will discuss the background of Anna, her theoretical perspective, and the contributions she made to the field of psychology.
Anna’s Background
Martha and Sigmund had six children, the youngest was Anna born in December 1895. Anna was a mischievous girl who had great admiration the work of her father (Young-Bruehl, 1988). However, she grew separate from her siblings and her mother. Sigmund Freud reciprocated Anna’s adoration and at one time, he wrote of her stating, “Anna has turned absolute beautiful through naughtiness…” (Boeree, 1998, pg 64) Frequently, Anna spoke of her competition feelings against her sister Sophie- the beautiful child of Freud and Anna the brains of Freud family. There was a strained bond between Anna and her mother Martha and the other siblings because their nanny, Jose Cihlarz, took care of them. Anna finished her education at Cottage Lyceum in Vienna in 1912 and was not sure about her future path of career. Anna travelled to Britain in 1914 to grow her English skills but retuned to Vienna after a declaration of war. She got the credentials of teaching and started teaching at her former school. She showed great interest in the field of child psychology after taking much of her time teaching and observing her pupils. Anna decided to abandon being only a teacher to...

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...ychology (Coles, 1992). She endured being called Sigmund daughter to become a prominent female psychologist in a field and period where the men dominated publications and research. Anna is a true successor of her father and influenced the psychology field as a formal discipline with innovative therapeutic and observation techniques. The works of Anna are historical and worthy discussion, despite of some modern day psychologist agreeing or disagreeing with any of the Freudian perspectives.

Works Cited

Boeree, G. C. (1998). Anna Freud. Personality Theories. Retrieved from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/annafreud.html Coles, Robert (1992). Anna Freud: The dream of psychoanalysis. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Goodwin, C. J. (2005). A history of modern psychology (2nd Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley
Young-Bruehl, E. (1988). Anna Freud: A biography. New York: Summit Books

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