The Hampstead Child Therapy Course was started by Anna Freud in 1947. Students included Joyce McDougall, who had her first experience of intensive analysis with children whilst on the course. The Hampstead Child Therapy Course and Clinic was founded in 1952 by Anna Freud, Dorothy Burlingham, and Helen Ross, becoming the first child psychoanalytic centre for observational research, teaching and learning. The Hampstead Child Therapy Course and Clinic was established as a charity with the purpose of providing training, treatment and research in child psychoanalysis. After Anna Freud's death in 1982, the Centre was renamed the "Anna Freud Centre". The Centre's current Directors, Linda Mayes, Peter Fonagy, and Mary Target, were appointed in 2003. Their aim has been to secure the Anna Freud Centre's position as the leading psychoanalytic innovator and provider of mental health treatment to children and families in Europe. In June 2003 a study conducted jointly by the Anna Freud Centre, Great Ormond Street Hospital and Coram Family Adoption Services on the way in which abused children can have their faith in adults restored through adoption was published. In September 2009 a collaborative project involving the Anna Freud Centre, Kids Company and UCL was launched to study what happens to the brains of children who have suffered early trauma. In May 2010 a campaign was launched by the charity Kids Company to raise £5 million to fund a study into how children's brain development is affected by loving care and attachment, with the study work to be conducted by the Anna Freud Centre in partnership with the Institute of Psychiatry, UCL, the Tavistock Clinic and Oxford University.
Activities
Treatment
The Centre provides short-term and long-term specialist treatments for children suffering from mental illnesses.
The Centre offers the following certificate, diploma and MSc courses:
MRes in Developmental Neuroscience & Psychopathology. This course was established in 2006 as part of the new Anna Freud Centre/Yale Child Study Center Bridge Programme and addresses a growing interest among both neuroscientists and developmental scholars in integrating ideas of social-emotional development with contemporary understanding of brain development and brain function. It consists of one year of teaching at the Anna Freud Centre/UCL, and one year or independent research at the Yale Child Study Center/Yale University.
MSc in Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology. The course combines theoretical consideration of psychoanalytic perspectives on developmental issues and inter-family relationships with year-long observations of infants and children.
MSc in Developmental Psychology & Clinical Practice
UCL Post Graduate Certificate/Post Graduate Diploma/MSc in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and other Outcomes-Based Interventions. These new UCL programmes are intended for all professionals working in children's services, including social care, education and health.
PGCert in ‘Leadership and change’ new from Jan 2020
The Centre also offers an extensive range of short courses.
Library
The Anna Freud Centre Library supports the academic, clinical and research activities at the Centre. It currently holds approximately 2,000 books covering both historical and contemporary psychoanalytic material, and subscribes to 22 journal titles. Electronic access to research publications is also available.
