“Papa always makes it clear that he would like to know me as much more rational and lucid than the girls and women he gets to know during his analytic hours.”
— Anna Freud
Picture early morning in Vienna’s Berggasse 19. Sigmund Freud lights a cigar, pours black coffee, and settles in with Anna beside him. She is composed and attentive. Strangers might conclude she is his assistant. Maybe a patient. Perhaps a family member stopping by to say hello. All true. But what the casual observer misses is a deeper story. This is not a typical father–daughter bond. They are united — one would spend his life trying to fix grown-ups. The other would spend hers fixing children. And here’s the irony: they started with each other.
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