Nick Midgley - Reading Anna Freud

Reading Anna Freud

What place do Anna Freuds ideas have in the history of psychoanalysis? What can her writings teach us today about how to work therapeutically with children? Are her psychoanalytic ideas still relevant to those entrusted with the welfare of infants and young people?

Reading Anna Freud provides an accessible introduction to the writings of one of the most significant figures in the history of psychoanalysis. Each chapter introduces a number of her key papers, with clear summaries of the main ideas, historical background, a discussion of the influence and contemporary relevance of her thinking, and recommendations for further reading.

Areas covered include Anna Freuds writings on:

Nick Midgley draws on his extensive experience as a child psychotherapist and a teacher to bring Anna Freuds ideas to life. He illustrates the remarkable originality of her thinking, and shows how analytic ideas can be used not only in child psychotherapy, but also to inform the care of children in families, hospitals, classrooms, residential care and the courtroom.

Reading Anna Freud will be of interest to child therapists, child analysts and psychoanalysts, as well as others working in the field of child and adolescent mental health, such as clinical psychologists, child psychiatrists and educational psychologists. It also has much to offer to those entrusted with the care of children in a wide range of settings including teachers, nurses and social workers for whom Anna Freud was always keen to demonstrate the value of a psychoanalytic approach.

Nick Midgley trained as a child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Anna Freud Centre, where he now works as a clinician and as Programme Director for the MSc in Developmental Psychology and Clinical Practice. Nick has written articles on a wide range of topics and is joint editor of Minding the Child: Mentalization-based Interventions with Children, Young People and their Families (Routledge, 2012) and Child Psychotherapy and Research: New Directions, Emerging Findings (Routledge, 2009).

THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

General Editor: Alessandra Lemma

The New Library of Psychoanalysis was launched in 1987 in association with the Institute of Psychoanalysis, London. It took over from the International Psychoanalytical Library which published many of the early translations of the works of Freud and the writings of most of the leading British and Continental psychoanalysts.

The purpose of the New Library of Psychoanalysis is to facilitate a greater and more widespread appreciation of psychoanalysis and to provide a forum for increasing mutual understanding between psychoanalysts and those working in other disciplines such as the social sciences, medicine, philosophy, history, linguistics, literature and the arts. It aims to represent different trends both in British psychoanalysis and in psychoanalysis generally. The New Library of Psychoanalysis is well placed to make available to the English-speaking world psychoanalytic writings from other European countries and to increase the interchange of ideas between British and American psychoanalysts. Through the Teaching Series, the New Library of Psychoanalysis now also publishes books that provide comprehensive, yet accessible, overviews of selected subject areas aimed at those studying psychoanalysis and related fields such as the social sciences, philosophy, literature and the arts.

The Institute, together with the British Psychoanalytical Society, runs a low-fee psychoanalytic clinic, organizes lectures and scientific events concerned with psychoanalysis and publishes the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. It runs the a training course in psychoanalysis which leads to membership of the International Psychoanalytical Association the body which preserves internationally agreed standards of training, of professional entry, and of professional ethics and practice for psychoanalysis as initiated and developed by Sigmund Freud. Distinguished members of the Institute have included Michael Balint, Wilfred Bion, Ronald Fairbairn, Anna Freud, Ernest Jones, Melanie Klein, John Rickman and Donald Winnicott.

Previous general editors have included David Tuckett, who played a very active role in the establishment of the New Library. He was followed as general editor by Elizabeth Bott Spillius, who was in turn followed by Susan Budd and then by Dana Birksted-Breen.

Current members of the Advisory Board include Liz Allison, Giovanna di Ceglie, Rosemary Davies and Richard Rusbridger.

Previous Members of the Advisory Board include Christopher Bollas, Ronald Britton, Catalina Bronstein, Donald Campbell, Sara Flanders, Stephen grosz, John Keene, Egl Laufer, Alessandra Lemma, Juliet Mitchell, Michael Parsons, Rosine Jozef Perelberg, Mary Target and David Taylor.

ALSO IN THIS SERIES

Impasse and Interpretation Herbert Rosenfeld

Psychoanalysis and Discourse Patrick Mahony

The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men Marion Milner

The Riddle of Freud Estelle Roith

Thinking, Feeling, and Being Ignacio Matte Blanco

The Theatre of the Dream Salomon Resnik

Melanie Klein Today: Volume 1, Mainly Theory Edited by Elizabeth Bott Spillius

Melanie Klein Today: Volume 2, Mainly Practice Edited by Elizabeth Bott Spillius

Psychic Equilibrium and Psychic Change: Selected Papers of Betty Joseph Edited by Michael Feldman and Elizabeth Bott Spillius

About Children and Children-No-Longer: Collected Papers 194280 Paula Heimann. Edited by Margret Tonnesmann

The FreudKlein Controversies 194145 Edited by Pearl King and Riccardo Steiner

Dream, Phantasy and Art Hanna Segal

Psychic Experience and Problems of Technique Harold Stewart

Clinical Lectures on Klein & Bion Edited by Robin Anderson

From Fetus to Child Alessandra Piontelli

A Psychoanalytic Theory of Infantile Experience: Conceptual and Clinical Reflections E Gaddini. Edited by Adam Limentani

The Dream Discourse Today Edited and introduced by Sara Flanders

The Gender Conundrum: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Feminitity and Masculinity Edited and introduced by Dana Breen

Psychic Retreats John Steiner

The Taming of Solitude: Separation Anxiety in Psychoanalysis Jean-Michel Quinodoz