ABSTRACT
As incomprehensible as it may seem today, infanticide continued to be a frequent measure for dealing with abnormal or problematic children through the Middle Ages, and beyond. While Hippocrates had early on suggested that insanity was "a disease of the brain," until the nineteenth century its treatment was, for the most part, excluded from the purview of medicine. It was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that the child began to be seen as unique and to be differentiated from the adult. Comenius (1592-1670) led theologians, educators, philosophers, and physicians in recognizing and addressing the developmental needs of children as involving the soul (character), the body, and learning (Comenius, 1856). Indeed, he was the first to recognize the value of play as a means oflearning and mastery. Locke, in 1692, recognized developmental stages in children and, seeing the child as a "tabula rasa," emphasized the importance of guidance (Locke, 1910). He felt that to achieve "rationality" the child had to harness his desires and passions. In 1762, Rousseau emphasized the innate goodness and natural development of the child (Rousseau, 1962). Both he and Locke used deconditioning techniques to treat children's phobic symptoms. Indeed, these early perceptions and understandings of child development paved a path to therapeutics.
