The Psychoanalytic Work Of Hansi Kennedy: From War Nurseries To The Anna Freud Centre (1940-1993)

An accurate reflection of the work of Hansi Kennedy requires the placement of her writing in the context of a life lived in the relatively early days of the development of child psychoanalysis. As a witness to and participant in the work of Anna Freud, Kennedy's own perceptions of her early professional life include the pivotal period of the migration of psychoanalysis from Vienna to London. Her role in the Hampstead War Nurseries and later in the Hampstead Child Therapy Course and Clinic included much of significance in the evolution of psychoanalytic thought regarding children and their psychological development.Kennedy's thinking was clear, disciplined and sophisticated, with a depth that demonstrated her understanding of development and of the mind of the child. Unburdened by concerns of what was and was not analysis, and whether child analysis was equivalent to adult analysis, she followed the children, first in the War Nurseries, then in the Hampstead Nursery School and the children she and others analyzed at the Hampstead Clinic, later the Anna Freud Centre.With Kennedy's death in 2003 a chapter in child psychoanalysis closed. This book is an attempt to honor her memory and to share her ideas.