Anna Freud: The Hampstead War Nurseries and the role of the direct observation of children for psychoanalysis

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The variation in the case material made it possible to see children, almost from birth, in 

contact with their mothers or deprived of mother care, breast fed or bottle fed, in the throes 

of separation or reunited with their lost objects, in contact with their mother substitutes 

and teachers, and developing relations with their contemporaries. The stages of libidinal 

and aggressive development, the process and the effects of weaning and toilet training, the 

acquisition of speech and of the various ego functions could be followed closely. (p. 146)

Many years later, Ilse Hellman, having worked in the Nurseries throughout 

the war, recalled more precisely the method by which observations were made. 

She described how all the staff (even those not directly employed to care for the 

children) were encouraged to write down observations they made during their daily 

contact with the children on index cards, their attention ‘free-fl oating’ in emulation 

of the analyst’s attitude (see Figure 2). Observations were to be written in a strictly 

non-theoretical language, detailing as closely as possible the observed behaviour of 

the child. Hellman writes,

The common aim of observers in the Hampstead Nurseries was to record any item that 

seemed worth noting when it appeared to contribute to our knowledge of development, 

either confi rming or contradicting expected reactions, bringing new points to our attention or 

helping towards a clearer understanding of an individual child. (1990, p. 57)

Figure 2 — An example of an observation index-card

from the Hampstead War Nurseries

© Anna Freud Centre, reproduced with permission

Since they were recorded on index cards, the method of pooling observations was 

used, so that a mass of observational material on each child was gradually built up, and 

these were used to help deepen the staff’s understanding of a particular child and his 

or her needs. Evening meetings were also used to try to classify and co-ordinate these 

observations, and a system of cross-referencing allowed cards to be brought together 

both in relation to a particular child or to a particular theme (e.g. reaction to air-raids). 

As documents in the Anna Freud Centre archives recently discovered by Dr Inge 

Pretorius make clear, a series of seminars was offered to the young staff working in 

the War Nurseries, covering both the fundamentals of psychoanalysis (taught by Ernest 

Jones, Hedwig Hoffer and Kate Friedlander, among others) and more practical topics, 

such as ‘Anatomy, fi rst aid and children’s diseases’ (Josefi ne Stross, the Freud family’s 

doctor), ‘Gymnastics for babies’ (Claire Nettl) and an ‘Introduction to the Montessori 

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Method’ (Hedy Schwartz). Staff members were encouraged to test theoretical concepts 

against their direct observations of the children in the Nurseries. Following a policy 

fi rst established in the Jackson Nursery in Vienna, developmental charts were created 

for each child, including information about areas such as weight, feeding and sleep 

patterns, sexual development, training for cleanliness, defence mechanisms, conscience 

formation and object relations (see Figure 3). This broad and systematic collection of 

psychoanalytically informed data encouraged research on topics such as ‘reactions to 

the disruption of family life’, ‘responses to substitute mothering’ and ‘the effects of 

group living’, as well as the more detailed elaboration of psychoanalytic concepts such 

as psycho-sexual development (Hellman, 1990, pp. 23–4).

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Figure 3 — An example of one section of a developmental chart

Reproduced from Burlingham (1952, insert after p. 94—developmental chart 11)

© International Universities Press, reproduced with permission

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This method of research, using pooled observations, was later to form the basis of the ‘Hampstead 

Index’, a large-scale study of psychoanalytic theory based on clinical material gathered during the 

analysis of children at the Hampstead Child-Therapy Centre (Sandler, 1962).

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The observations collected by all members of staff were made use of exten-

sively in the ‘Monthly Reports’ on the War Nurseries, written from February 1941 

onwards, but only published in 1973. These provided a mass of observational 

details that, in retrospect, can be seen to form the basis of many of Anna Freud’s 

theoretical developments in the post-war period, especially her concept of the 

‘developmental lines’ (A. Freud, 1965). They also formed the core data for two 

publications specifi cally related to the Nurseries (A. Freud and Burlingham, 1942, 

1944).

Observational fi ndings from the Hampstead War Nurseries

From the moment of the children’s arrival at the War Nurseries, the members of 

staff were able to observe the impact of the war on young children. A number of 

children who came to the Nurseries had lost one or both parents (more often their 

father) as a result of the war, and those children who had been alive at the time of the 

‘London blitz’ were familiar with air-raids and—in many cases—came from homes 

that had been damaged or destroyed as a result of bombs. Yet, surprisingly, most of 

the children did not display the kind of ‘traumatic shock’ that many had predicted, 

although there were complex reactions to air-raids, depending on the particular 

child’s own experiences and their stage of development. Based on observations 

made by the staff of the Nurseries, Anna Freud distinguished between fi ve types 

(or aspects) of air-raid anxiety, thereby encouraging other observers to discriminate 

more carefully between anxiety as a reaction to ‘real’ danger (which can be fairly 

quickly overcome) and anxiety which was determined more by the strength of the 

child’s own instinctual impulses or stage of superego development. She also recog-

nized, through her observations, the degree to which a child’s response to air raids 

was determined by the reaction of his or her parents (A. Freud and Burlingham, 

1944, pp. 163–72).

What was much more striking than the way these children responded to the war 

itself (which was perhaps not surprising, if poorly understood) was the reaction of 

these young children to a sudden separation from their families. Anna Freud was 

able to trace the different meaning of—and reaction to—separation, depending on 

the age of the child, but in general she noted that ‘observers seldom appreciate the 

depth and seriousness of this grief of a small child’ (A. Freud and Burlingham, 

1944, p. 183). For example, Carol, aged 17 months, repeated the words ‘mum, mum, 

mum’, continually in a deep voice for almost three days after being separated from 

her parents. At fi rst she would only allow herself to be comforted by sitting on a 

nurse’s lap with her head turned away from the unfamiliar adult. ‘Whenever she 

looked at the face of the person who held her, she began to cry’ (p. 184).

With a slightly older child, aged 3 or 4, where ambivalent feelings are a normal 

part of the parent–child relationship, separation often seemed an intolerable confi r-

mation of negative feelings. Billie, aged 3½, responded to the separation from his 

parents by behaving unusually well, carefully observing all the rules that he had so 

often broken when at home. When he heard that his mother had gone into hospital 

with a bad leg, he suddenly remembered a time that he had kicked her and worried 

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