Maria Montessori and Anna Freud: links and influences between pedagogy and psychoanalysis

The fascination with the Montessori Method stems from a never quite exhaustive analysis of her studies, which, due to the multiplicity and complexity of its elements, continually lend themselves to readings, hermeneutic interpretations and discoveries. Following a series of “clues” that see the figure of Maria Montessori intertwined with that of Anna Freud, this article intends to enhance the interdisciplinary interweaving and the multiple links which, by relating pedagogy with psychoanalysis, favor a broader vision of the implications relating to the changes occurring during the first half of the twentieth century, in which the child is the protagonist.