Anna Freud’s Advances in Community Psychoanalysis

Abstract

At the height of Viennese modernism in the 1920s, the new psychoanalytic pedagogy “came on the scene,” Anna Freud said, “in a revolutionary spirit.” Whether by intent or historical circumstance, so too did the field of child analysis and the community clinics. Known as educational counseling services, and generally located within public schools and community housing centers, the clinics served children, adolescents and families with an approach that unified education with health and mental health. Psychoanalysis and education should evolve symbiotically, reinforcing each other’s strengths. Anna Freud’s defense of children’s rights, her pioneering theories and public practice were all uniquely her own yet characteristic of a city that embraced the pursuit of a just society.