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cannot call my need other than 'stupid'." Having admitted this
much, Anna Freud went on: "Towards the mother of the children it
is not very different with me." Her confession ended with: "Curi–
ously enough, though, I am very much ashamed of all these things,
especially in front of Papa, and therefore I tell him nothing about it.
This [about the Burlinghams, children and mother] is only a small
illustration, but actually I have this dependency
[Abhangtgkeit],
this
wanting-to-have-something
[Etwas-Haben- Wollen]
-even leaving my
profession aside - in every nook and cranny of my life."
Anna Freud's desire to have in some way the Burlingham
children and their mother, like the larger problem which she thought
the desire reflected - her dependency, her need for something for
herself- marked the limit of her analytic relationship with her
father. She also told Eitingon that she had tried, unsuccessfully, to
discuss her desire for confirmation from others and for "something"
for herself with Lou Andreas-Salome: "I once spoke with Lou about
this years ago. She herself is so enormously distanced from it,
though, that we finally both had to laugh about our mutual- not to
be overcome by psychoanalytic knowledge - and complete inability
to understand each other."
Anna Freud was not in analysis with her father in the fall of
1925, so her silence was not a breach of the "fundamental rule" for an
analysand-to speak what comes to mind without censoring. But it
did mean that she felt constrained by her peculiar analytic situation.
Under the circumstances, she did the analytically logical thing: she
turned to Eitingon, and created a quasi-analytic situation in which
she could try to overcome the dilemma of having had her father as
her analyst. She could deal with someone who shared her difficul–
ties-as her father and Lou did not. "With me," she had tried to ex–
plain to Frau Lou, "everything became so problematic because of
two basic faults: from a discontent or insatiability with myself that
makes me look for affection from others, and then from actually
sticking with the others once I've found them. [The first] is just what
you and Papa cannot understand."
Once Eitingon had accepted her confession - and, tacitly, the
role she had cast him in - she felt free to tell him in detail about
Dorothy Burlingham. "Being together with Mrs. Burlingham is a
great joy for me, and I am very happy that you also have such a good
impression of her," she wrote to Eitingon after his first meeting with
her friend. "I am often very sorry that she is not in analysis with
you," said Anna Freud, who might have been speaking of herself.
