austrianborn psychoanalyst anni bergman 102 who worked with autistic children died oct 2 she was part of a groundbreaking study that observed how very young children separated from their mothers late in life she became a photographers musecreditsebastian zimmermann oct 17 2021anni bergman an austrianborn psychoanalyst who worked with autistic children and contributed to a landmark study of early childhood development died on oct 2 at home in manhattan she was 102her son tobi confirmed the deathdr bergman was a 40yearold mother and music teacher when she was hired by margaret mahler a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst to help with a study of mothers and babies at a therapeutic nursery in the west village a friend had turned down the job dr mahler was known to be difficult and dr bergman who was interested in the field appliedfor more than a decade starting in 1959 dr bergman and others watched as the babies found their legs as it were or didnt they observed how many ventured out on their own and the various ways their mothers supported or inhibited such explorationsits that moving away and coming back thats very important dr bergman told an interviewer in 2012 we learned that separation isnt always difficult it isnt always the baby that is left sometimes it is the baby that is leavingthe study was groundbreaking at the time freudian theory which still dominated therapeutic practices had long dictated that the proper setting for learning about what dr bergman called the internal world was in the analysts office and that in any case babies couldnt tell us much about that world until they began to talkpreoedipal development was seen as a prelude to the main oedipal drama she wrote in 2000 in her introduction to a reissue of the psychological birth of the human infant symbiosis and individuation written with dr mahler and fred pine another noted psychoanalyst and first published in 1975 the book detailed the groups work which came to be known as separationindividuation theorythe groups other big idea was to use observation and not theory to organize such a study observation without judgment as dr bergman liked to say and dr bergman turned out to be an extraordinary observer able to interpret a babys behavior with uncanny skillthis made her especially adroit at understanding autistic children which became her calling in a separate study she and her colleagues worked with mothers and their autistic or psychotic children tripartite treatment working together with parents and their children was a rare practice at the timewe felt like explorers in an obscure realm of preverbal and presymbolic development dr bergman wrote a spirit of excitement prevailedimagecreditann steineranna emilie rink was born on jan 10 1919 in vienna her father ernst owned a factory her mother marta haas rink a homemaker died of breast cancer when anni was 10 two sisters died of influenza her father died when she 17 the family was well off and anni was cared for by a household staff