Author Description

From the Introduction by Daniel Benveniste: Psychoanalysis is a human tradition passed on from one generation to the next. This collection of letters and related documents are a testament to the fertile collaboration between Anna Freud and Humberto Nágera, and through these documents we witness the passing of the torch. Their work together was based at the Hampstead Clinic in London, and included clinical work, theoretical seminars, research, and cooperation in the management of administrative tasks at the Clinic. When Dr. Nágera informed me of this collection of letters, I immediately recognized that they documented one of the most fertile periods in Anna Freud's career, and were, therefore, worthy of inclusion in the literature on psychoanalytic history. I was honored to take on the editorial task, and found Dr. Nágera very helpful in answering my questions about people and places mentioned in the letters. I found, embedded in these letters and documents, keys to understanding the relationship between Anna Freud's personality and her work, which developed in the context of her relationships with others. A history of this kind presents the major contributor to psychoanalysis not as a larger-than-life person, but as a dedicated and gifted analyst working within an historical context and professional environment. Humberto Nágera was born in Cuba in 1927, and did his undergraduate work at the University of Havana, and his medical studies at Havana Medical School (1952). After becoming a psychiatrist he sought psychoanalytic training, and began as a psychoanalytic candidate at the Institute of the British Psychoanalytical Society in 1958, and a trainee at the Hampstead Clinic in 1959. Soon after his arrival at the Hampstead Clinic he became a trusted colleague of Anna Freud and collaborated with her as one of her closest associates during one of the most productive periods of her life. He left London and the Clinic in 1968, but maintained his correspondence with her un