Presentation of the C. Anderson Aldrich Award to Anna Freud

Abstract

It is my privilege and pleasure to introduce Anna Freud to you and to read her paper for this most important occasion. Dr. Freud deeply regrets that she is unable to be with you and asked that I represent her at this meeting. May I say how appropriate and fitting it is to honor children throughout the world by conferring the C. Anderson Aldrich Award for 1974 on Dr. Anna Freud. Historically it is impressive that in 1968 and in 1971 this distinguished award was conferred on two of Anna Freud's former students and colleagues. I refer to Dr. Edith B. Jackson and Professor Erik Erikson. Anna Freud, who started her professional activities as a teacher of young children, became the founder of child psychoanalysis. Throughout her career she has always had an affinity for working together with pediatricians, teachers, nurses, and all who are concerned with children. To this day she meets at least once a month with a group of distinguished English pediatric colleagues who have been her collaborators for more than 20 years. They share much in their curiosity about and compassion for children. They are devoted to helping children overcome illness and the handicaps of life. These include the burdens, threats, and losses associated with poverty, war, physical illness, genetic handicaps, and the destruction of the child's body and mind that result from adult abuse and deprivation. In introducing Anna Freud, it is appropriate to call attention to her clinic, the Hampstead Child Therapy Center, and to her gallant colleagues with whom she works so closely on a daily basis.