What were Anna Freud’s contributions to psychoanalysis? Why is she considered a pioneer of ego psychology?
Anna Freud was the youngest daughter of Freud having one of the six children and was born in the same year in which the Freud and Breuer published their article on Studies on Hysteria that leads to the foundation of psychoanalysis. Infact, she was a primary school teacher, her interest in psychosocial nature deepened to the concept of psychoanalysis behavior like her father in a rational way.
Freud has meaningful discussions with Anna Freud about the psychoanalysis behavior that builds the ideas of psychoanalytic goal to form the concept of pornography in a more modified manner. She also joined her father’s missionary school to motivate the analytic ideas throughout the world that cherished the antiques and personal thoughts in more psychoanalytic contributions.
Anna Freud has a major focus on the concept of ego psychology that helps in the analyzing the childhood behavior for treating adults in a modified manner. Children display developmental experiences that hinder the obstacles towards their normal patterns of growth. Thus, she defined the term developmental lines to identify the child’s rapid transition state from internal to external reality and adapt to demands of life that are personal, situational and interpersonal by adjustment towards developmental patterns.
Anna Freud published her famous book on The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense that majorly emphasized on the functional levels of ego. She described ego defenses that correlate with the mechanistic level of anxiety such as moral, neurotic and objective that ultimately exists as an independent entity. These ego mechanisms adjust the needs of biological and social behavior that determines the traditional use of defense nature.