Lloyd DeMause: He was a psychologist who wrote a collection of essays in 1976 called "The History of Childhood". He held the dark view that children were systematically maltreated in the past, especially in medieval times. According to De Mause, "The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused."

"The History of Childhood" was published in a book called Varieties of Psychohistory. In his essay, De Mause explained his "psychogenic theory of history," in which the central force for change in history is the "psychogenic changes" in personality that occur because of successive generations of parent-child interactions.

Examining the psychological aspect of childhood history, De Mause names three adult reactions to children. A projective reaction is one in which the adult uses the child as a vehicle for the projection of the contents of his or her own unconscious. A reversal reaction is where the adult uses the child as a substitute for an adult figure important in his or her own childhood. The final reaction, an empathic reaction, is where the adult empathizes with the child's needs and acts to satisfy them.

According to De Mause, projective and reversal reactions occurred simultaneously in the past, producing a "double image" of the child as both a devil and an adult. This simultaneous occurrence is responsible for much of the bizarre quality of childhood in the past, such as the enormous number of nightmares and hallucinations by children.

De Mause believes that by changing child-rearing modes, the quality of childhood has improved and will continue to improve in the future. His psychogenic theory can provide a genuinely new paradigm for the study of history. --Allison Williams