Emotions as practice: Anna Freud's child psychoanalysis and thinking-doing children's emotional geographies

The paper introduces Anna Freud's early writing from the perspective of the theory and practice of children's emotional geographies. Discussing especially Freud's view on the theory of defence mechanisms and her early arguments with Melanie Klein about the nature of the child's mind, it explores how children's emotions can be approached beyond children's own representational accounts of their emotional experiences. The paper advocates an engagement with Anna Freud's work and psychoanalysis that would account for different forms of knowledge produced in the intersubjective processes of research and for the significance of the relationships with child participants.