ABSTRACT
Hermine Hug-Hellmuth illegitimate half-sister seven years her elder, later, illicitly, reappeared in this family as a full sister named Antoine only two years older than her. From the very beginnings of the clinical practice of psychoanalysis of the child, the analyst was placed right in the centre of the family drama. Her contribution remained essentially unrecognised by both Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, as well as by others who were prominent in burgeoning field. Hug-Hellmuth in many ways epitomises the duality that is at the origins of the psychoanalysis of the child. Psychoanalysis of the child, following Hug-Hellmuth, is therefore the bastard child of psychoanalysis. Hug-Hellmuth was the forerunner of several divergent streams of psychoanalysis with children. The analyst who is confronted with a child is also inevitably confronted by the history of the psychoanalysis of the child.
