title: Hermine Hug-Hellmuth, the first child psychoanalyst: legacy and dilemmas.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Despite being the first psychoanalyst of children, Hermine Hug-Hellmuth's history and writings remain relatively unknown. This paper endeavours to examine the way in which the history of the psychoanalysis of children is marked by the history of its protagonists. In particular, Hug-Hellmuth's treatment of children is divided between an educational approach and a more properly psychoanalytical aspect. Her theory and practice heavily influenced the directions taken after her, in particular by Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, even if this influence is essentially unacknowledged by these authors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Hug-Hellmuth's contribution to the psychoanalysis of children and consequently to child psychiatry are considerable and include technical innovation with the introduction of play into the treatment of children, the elaboration of the place of the analyst in regard to the child and notably the establishment of the place of the parents in regard to the treatment of the child. It is proposed that the very duality of her approach is what allowed her to be able to distinguish the place of the parent from that of the analyst. Nonetheless, her insistence on the place of education within the treatment and its effects on later theorists continue to raise dilemmas today.
authors.affiliation: Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, Moorabbin, VIC Australia. m.plastow@alfred.org.au
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Plastow
mesh_terms: D001317:Austria; D002648:Child; D002665:Child Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000266:history*