ANNAFREUD HE CONTRIBUTIONS of so germinal a person as Anna Freud are

too many and too varied to be covered by an essay such as this. T Her achievements within psychoanalytic theory, technique, and research methodology are monumental, and all the more remark-able in that they are so useful to such a diversity of workers from the fields of child development, teacher training, nursery school education, inpatient care, outpatient care, residential care, the law, and child welfare, to name but a few. I t would be difficult to exaggerate the substantive importance and seminal force of this body of work. At the same time, not to appear arbitrary, I feel obliged to state the reasons for my choice of content in this essay. I have elected to focus ultimately on the areas of theory construction and research methodology because it is my impression that psycho-analytic research and metapsychology are at a critical historical moment. I feel, further, that although she has rarely explicitly stated this as her intent, Anna Freud has clearly delineated some of the major obstacles to conceptual development and has sug-gested significant avenues for future growth. Precisely because she so rarely directs her comments explicitly to this area, it has been that aspect of her thought which is least attended to and insuf-ficiently appreciated. T h e scaffold and texture of Anna Freud's writings represent the most proficient, knowledgeable, and func-tional grasp of the epistemological structure and function o