ABSTRACT
As stated earlier, in her “Short history of child analysis” Anna Freud mentioned the names of colleagues who had expanded the field of application of psychoanalysis to “other ages [than adults] as well as other categories of disturbance [than the neuroses]” (Freud, A., 1966a, p. 49). She refers in this connection to Siegfried Bernfeld’s study and treatment of disturbed adolescents; August Aichhorn, “who pioneered in the field of wayward youth”; Sadger and his work with perversions; Paul Federn’s experiments with the treatment of psychotics; and the study of criminals by Alexander and Staub. She also named some of the colleagues responsible for the establishment of child analysis at about the same time as herself: Hermine Hug-Hellmuth, Berta Bornstein, Melanie Klein, Ada Müller-Braunschweig, Steff Born-stein, and Alice Balint. However, were these all child analysts in the proper sense of the term? In his biography of Anna Freud, Peters expresses the view that none of them was except for Melanie Klein. He concludes:
By presenting the names, Anna Freud manifestly wished to give the impression that a theory and practice of child psychoanalysis had 20existed before her. This version has been widely accepted without verification. In reality, she [and also, I (AH) would add, Melanie Klein] had to lay the foundations of child psychoanalysis first. [Peters, 1979, p. 108, translated.]
