ABSTRACT

Of Anna Freud’s three major ventures in early childhood care and research, the Jackson Nursery formed a natural bridge between the Hietzing School in Vienna and the Hampstead War Nurseries in London. With her characteristic enthusiasm, optimism and curiosity, she lent her psychoanalytic knowledge to programs where the children thrived and the teachers were inspired. With funding from Edith Banfield Jackson, an American physician and analysand of Sigmund Freud, and Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham as well as political support from the American Ambassador to Austria, George Strausser Messersmith, Anna Freud’s project took shape. Anna Freud believed that treating psychological disturbances early in childhood would prevent the development of later pathology. She was particularly interested in learning about children’s independent eating, toilet mastery, sleep patterns and aggression. Some children learned about personal hygiene only at the nursery and others regressed to wetting themselves after joining the nursery.