ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how, during the period 1945–1975, the child figure in Swedish literature on child psychotherapy changed from being construed as different from adults to being identical to adults with one exception: the developmental dimension. Individual psychotherapy for children was developed in Sweden at The Erica Foundation located in Stockholm. The Erica Foundation was a privately run child guidance clinic for so-called nervous, difficult and delicate children. Founded in 1934, it had played a significant role in the development of child guidance services in Sweden. Seitz's new relation-oriented approach to the child in therapy took form in a number of ways. She stressed continuous attention to individual expressions of the child patient, specifically the unconscious dimensions, and new directions in the therapeutic process were developed such as 'passively-active attitude' and 'half a step behind'.
