Contributions to the History of Psychology: LXXIV. Edith Banfield Jackson: A Pioneer in Psychoanalysis

Abstract

Edith Jackson, recipient of one of Sigmund Freud's coveted rings, served him well as an ambassador for psychoanalysis. As a child psychiatrist for 25 years at the Yale School of Medicine, she developed the rooming-in plan which allowed parents and newborns to be together from birth. With Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham, she opened the Jackson Nursery, a precursor of American daycare centers. Among the most important people in developing the field of child psychology, Edith was one of the early psychologists who recognized the importance of satisfying the emotional as well as the physical needs of the newborn.