Anna Freud, First Book Owned By Her Student

Description

Freud, Anna. Das Ich Und Die Abwehrmechanismen. Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1936. First Edition. Association copy belonging to Freud’s student Edith Entenman with her annotations.

Called psychoanalyst Anna Freud’s “first major book” by the British Institute of Psychoanalysis, translated as, “The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense”, this work represents the daughter of the discipline’s founder stepping out from her father’s shadow. Lacking formal education but possessing a brilliant and unique intellect, this work—outlining her original thesis inspired by her own mental health issues a decade prior—details the ego’s strategies to protect itself from information and experiences it cannot handle. It became the first to earn the younger Freud serious consideration as a theorist as well as a technical analyst and would go on to become one of the foundational texts of ego psychology.

An unusual association copy owned by Freud’s American student Edith Entenman (1895-1974), who traveled from North Carolina to Vienna to study psychoanalysis with both Anna and Sigmund Freud in the 1930s.

Cited in several of Anna Freud’s works, Entenman went on to excel in the emerging intersection of child psychology and education along with another alumnus from Anna Freud’s circle, Edith Buxbaum. The two were the first psychologists at New York City’s Little Red School House, and Entenman would assist in preparing Anna Freud’s War and Children (1943) for English translation. Entenman’s pencil ownership signature dated 1936 can be found on the first free endpaper.

The text is annotated in pencil throughout, in Entenman’s hand, with extensive underlining and margin notes in both English and German. Given these facts and the timeline provided by Anna Freud’s published writings and the available records of her childhood development research and psychoanalysis instruction, it’s possible these annotations were made during Entenman’s instruction and possible analysis by Freud. With 1933 ship passenger records placing Entenman in Trieste, Italy, a frequent port for accessing Vienna by sea, she very likely assisted in the research that culminated in this classic psychoanalytic text. 8vo, natural grey cloth boards with title and author in red on front and printed in brown. Corners bumped, boards bowed and discolored toward edges. Spine bruised. Back spine hinge fragile with exterior exposed through book cloth. Bookblock, pastedowns, and endpapers spotted. Contemporary pencil ownership signature on front free endpaper. Some pages dog-eared. Pencil annotations throughout. Fairly good condition.

 

If you enjoyed this book, consider another interesting association copy: this Shekinah owned by Spiritualist Senator Nathaniel P. Tallmadge.