Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/38

 292 H. VON HUG-HELLMUTH

this demand, since he can only see daily half the number of patients as compared with those treated by his medical colleagues, and although an absolutely undisturbed and private talk in the patient's own house is difficult to obtain, nevertheless these evils seem to me trifling compared with the greater one of letting the child decide the external conditions of the analysis. Anotlier con- sideration is that the parents, in spite of all- their devotion, very soon feel that chaperoning of the child to and from the analyst's house becomes impossible and this difficulty is used as a reason for terminating the treatment — a situation well-known to every child-analyst.

However favourable may be a temporary absence from home for difficult children, nevertheless I have my doubts as to the value of psycho-analytic treatment for them in any kind of instit- ution, whether they are boarders or day-pupils, for one reason be- cause the child finds the necessity for secrecy in a situation where he feels himself more important than his comrades very difficult to endure, and for another, because he easily becomes a target for their ridicule when he has to have a special 'treatment hour', about the aim and object of which the other children cannot ob- tain information. What the treatment will be like in future happier times when perhaps some of my ideas for the founding of psycho- analytic homes for young children have been realized I cannot foretell, but I believe that it will need quite special tact, great educational skill and experience, to meet successfully the great difficulties which will arise in psycho-analytic treatment owing to collective life. The jealousy among the patients themselves, the making of comparisons not always favourable to one's own ana- lyst, the exchange of confidences between the children about their analysis which cannot be prevented — all these things are diffi- culties which must not be underrated. Nevertheless, I believe that the creation of psycho-analytic 'homes' will either solve the prob- lem of the guidance of the 'difficult' child which so many parents and schools fail in, or at least make the problem easier.

An important difference between the analysis of the child and of the grown-up results from what seems a merely external cir- cumstance; namely, whether the patient should lie down or sit up during treatment. For the very juvenile patient, this question is already answered by the limitations which his age imposes. But also in the case of the older child the notion of 'lying down'