Bruno Bettelheim

Infobox Scientist
name = Bruno Bettelheim
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caption = Bruno Bettelheim
birth_date = August 28, 1903
birth_place = Vienna, Austria
death_date = March 13, 1990
death_place = "Silver Springs County", Colorado,
United States, (aged 86)
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citizenship = USA
nationality = AUT
ethnicity =
field = psychology
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known_for = "former" child psychologist
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Bruno Bettelheim (August 28, 1903 – March 13, 1990) was a Jewish native of Austria who escaped as a refugee to the US before it entered World War II. There he continued his career as a child psychologist and writer. He was an internationally known figure, prominent for his studies of autism and success in treating emotionally disturbed children.

Bettelheim subscribed to and was a key proponent of the refrigerator mother theory of autism, which enjoyed considerable influence into the 1960s and 1970s in the US, although there were suggestions he later changed his thinking. [ [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16083 Robert Gottlieb, "The Strange Case of Dr. B.", The New York "Review of Books", 27 Feb 2003] , accessed 15 Apr 2008] It was in keeping with psychological theories that blamed most emotional illnesses on the parents, especially the mother. Bettleim 1967 book "The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self", which promoted the "refrigerator mother" theory of autism, enjoyed wide success, especially in popular press. The book played a key role in ensuring that the "refrigerator mother" theory soon became the accepted explanation for autism in popular culture and, to a considerable extent, in professional circles.

Since then medical research has provided greater understanding of the biological bases of autism and other illnesses. Bettelheim views on autism have been largely discredited in mainstream science, although the "refrigerator mother" theory still retains some prominent supporters. [cite web |title= 'Refrigerator mother' tosh must go into cold storage |author= Feinstein, Adam |publisher=autismconnect |url=http://autismconnect.org/news.asp?section=00010001&itemtype=adam&page=9&id=4540 |accessdate=2007-07-29] Katherine DeMaria Severson, James Arnt Aune, and Denise Jodlowski. [http://books.google.com/books?id=188XgDxmdbEC&pg=PA65&dq=autism+%22Refrigerator+mother%22&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=Qs7wSMulCZHcsgOuhMCdBw&sig=ACfU3U2AedWMF7MuWYJTEax2XXGArhp2hA#PPA65,M1 "Bruno Bettleheim, Autism and Rhetoric of Scientific Authority."] Autism and Representation, Mark Osteen (Editor); pp. 65–77. Routledge, 2007. ISBN-13: 9780415956444]

Bruno Bettelheim was the author of "The Uses of Enchantment", published in 1976, among numerous other works. In it he analyzed fairy tales in terms of Freudian psychology. The book was awarded the U.S. Critic's Choice Prize for criticism in 1976 and the National Book Award in the category of Contemporary Thought in 1977. Bettelheim discussed the emotional and symbolic importance of fairy tales for children, including traditional tales at one time considered too dark, such as those collected and published by the Brothers Grimm.

After Bettelheim's suicide in 1990, it was revealed that some of his academic credentials had been falsified. At the same time a number of his former patients came forward with accusations of neglect. Bettelheim's personal and professional reputation suffered considerably as a result.

Background

When his father died, Bettelheim left his university studies to care for his family's lumber business. Bettelheim and his first wife Gina took care of Patsy, an American child whom he later described as autistic. Patsy lived in the Bettelheim home in Vienna for seven years. Bettelheim returned to his education, earning a degree in philosophy and producing a dissertation on the history of art. Having discharged his obligations to his family's business, Bettelheim returned as a mature student in his 30s to the University of Vienna. He never completed a Ph.D. He embellished his resume.Fact|date=July 2008

In the Austrian academic culture of Bettelheim's time, one could not study the history of art without mastering aspects of psychology. The formal study of the role of Jungian archetypes in art, and art as an expression of the Freudian subconscious, were prerequisites for a Doctoral dissertation in the History of Art in 1938 at Vienna University.

Bettelheim was Jewish by birth, although his family was secular. When the Germans occupied Austria, he was deported with other Austrian Jews to Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps from 1938 to 1939. As a result of an amnesty Hitler declared on his birthday, April 20, 1939, Bettelheim and hundreds of other prisoners were released, which saved his life. He may also have used bribery to get released.Fact|date=July 2008 Bettelheim drew on the experience in the concentration camps in his later work.

Life and career in the US

Bettelheim arrived by ship as a refugee in New York in the fall of 1939 to join his wife Gina who had already immigrated. They divorced because she had gotten involved with someone else during their separation. He soon moved to Chicago and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1944. He married again in the US.

Bettelheim was appointed a professor of psychology and taught at the University of Chicago from 1944 until his retirement in 1973. He was trained in philosophy, but stated he had also been analyzed by the Viennese psychoanalyst Richard Sterba.

Bettelheim also served as Director of the University of Chicago's Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, a home that treated emotionally disturbed children. He changed it and created an environment for milieu therapy, in which children could form strong attachments with adults within a structured but caring environment. He claimed considerable success in treating some of the emotionally disturbed children. He wrote books on both normal and abnormal child psychology and was a major influence in the field, widely respected during his lifetime.

In "The Uses of Enchantment", Bettelheim suggested that traditional fairy tales, with the darkness of abandonment, death, witches, and injuries, allowed children to grapple with their fears. If they could read and interpret these fairy tales in their own way, he believed they would get a greater sense of meaning and purpose. Bettelheim thought that by engaging with the stories, children would go through emotional growth that would better prepare them for their own lives. He believed that the tales had an organic quality because of having evolved in societies, and that they allowed children to grapple with their darkest fears in symbolic terms.

His writings covered a wide range, beginning shortly after he arrived in the US with an essay on concentration camps and their dynamics. He was long considered an authority on these. [ [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16083 Robert Gottlieb, "The Strange Case of Dr. B.", The New York "Review of Books", 27 Feb 2003] , accessed 15 Apr 2008]

At the end of his life, Bettelheim suffered from depression and appeared to have had difficulties with it much of his life. [ [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16083 Robert Gottlieb, "The Strange Case of Dr. B.", The New York "Review of Books", 27 Feb 2003] , accessed 15 Apr 2008] In 1990, widowed and in failing health, he committed suicide.

Controversies

Theoretical controversy

When he started, Bettelheim believed that autism did not have an organic basis, but was the result of mothers who withheld appropriate affection from their children and failed to make a good connection. The most extreme point of view was that mothers literally did not want their children to exist. Absent or weak fathers were also blamed. One of his most famous books, "The Empty Fortress", contains a complex and detailed explanation of this dynamic in psychoanalytical and psychological terms. He derived his thinking from the qualitative investigation of clinical cases. He also related autistic children to conditions in concentration camps. In "A Good Enough Parent", published in 1987, he had come to the view that children were quite resilient and most parents could be "good enough" to help their children make a good start.Fact|date=July 2008

Personal controversy

In addition to reassessment of Bettelheim's psychological theories, controversy has arisen related to his history and personality. He had a prominent reputation as a compassionate man who had made a career of healing others and was considered an expert on the dynamics of the concentration camps.

After Bettelheim's suicide in 1990, detractors claimed that Bettelheim had a dark side. He was said to have exploded in screaming anger at students, and to have gone beyond firm treatment to corporal punishment or abuse. Three former patients questioned his work and characterized him as a cruel tyrant. Other former patients wrote or spoke publicly to tell how much Bettelheim had helped them, so there seemed no consensus. [ [http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9706/articles/finn.html Molly Finn, "In the Case of Bruno Bettelheim", "First Things", Vol. 74 (June/July 1997)] , accessed 15 Apr 2008] .

Two well-researched biographies published in the US in 1997 revealed evidence that Bettelheim had lied or exaggerated many parts of his background. These included wartime experiences, family life, academic credentials and the use of corporal punishment at the Orthogenic School. While Richard Pollak's biography was strongly negative, that by Nina Sutton offered a different interpretation of some of the material. There were huge gaps between the public reputation Bettelheim had established in the US and some of the facts revealed during this controversy, but there also seemed to be charges that related to the size of his personality. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/01/26/reviews/970126.boxer.html Sarah Boxer, "The Man He Always Wanted to Be", The New York "Times", 26 Jan 1997] , accessed 15 Apr 2008] [ [http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9706/articles/finn.html Molly Finn, "In the Case of Bruno Bettelheim", "First Things", Vol. 74 (June/July 1997)] , accessed 15 Apr 2008] [ [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16083 Robert Gottlieb, "The Strange Case of Dr. B.", The New York "Review of Books", 27 Feb 2003] , accessed 15 Apr 2008]

The resulting discussions and controversy called into question whether the University of Chicago had screened Bettelheim closely enough, although appointments to administrative positions such as director of the school do not require an academic appointment. Many parents who had children at the school claimed that their children had been helped by his treatment and continued to consider him a compassionate man.Fact|date=July 2008

Popular culture

In 1974, a four-part series featuring Bruno Bettelheim and directed by Daniel Carlin appeared on French TV - "Portrait de Bruno Bettelheim".

Woody Allen included Bettelheim as himself in a cameo in the film "Zelig" (1983).

Two former patients wrote about their experiences at the school, one in a novel and one in a memoir. Tom Lyons' novel "The Pelican and After" was published in 1983. Stephen Eliot's memoir, "Not the Thing I Was: Thirteen Years at Bruno Bettelheim's Orthogenics School", was published in 2003.

Bettelheim and the controversy that arose after his death appeared to influence the character of Dr. Andres de Bosch in Jonathan Kellerman's mystery "Bad Love". De Bosch is portrayed as a child psychiatrist who espouses great humanitarian ideals, while practicing bigotry, class prejudice and cruelty. In his life he is lionized for the man he seems to be, but after his death he is exposed as a tyrant and a fraud.

Citations

Bibliography

Major works

* 1943 "Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations", "Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology", 38: 417-452.
* 1950 "Love Is Not Enough: The Treatment of Emotionally Disturbed Children", Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
* 1954 "Symbolic Wounds; Puberty Rites and the Envious Male", Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
* 1955 "Truants From Life; The Rehabilitation of Emotionally Disturbed Children", Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
* 1959 "Joey: A 'Mechanical Boy'", "Scientific American", 200, March 1959: 117-126. (About a boy who believes himself to be a robot.)
* 1960 "The Informed Heart: Autonomy in a Mass Age", The Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
* 1962 "Dialogues with Mothers", The Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
* 1967 "The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self", The Free Press, New York
* 1969 "The Children of the Dream", Macmillan, London & New York (About the raising of children in kibbutz.)
* 1974 "A Home for the Heart", Knopf, New York. (About Bettelheim's Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago for schizophrenic and autistic children.)
* 1976 "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales", Knopf, New York
* 1979 "Surviving and Other Essays", Knopf, New York (Includes the essay "The Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank".)
* 1982 "On Learning to Read: The Child's Fascination with Meaning" (with Karen Zelan), Knopf, New York
* 1982 "Freud and Man's Soul", Knopf, 1983, ISBN 0394524810
* 1987 "A Good Enough Parent: A Book on Child-Rearing", Knopf, New York
* 1990 "Freud's Vienna and Other Essays", Knopf, New York
* 1994 Bettelheim, Bruno & Ekstein, Rudolf: Grenzgänge zwischen den Kulturen. "Das letzte Gespräch zwischen Bruno Bettelheim und Rudolf Ekstein". In: Kaufhold, Roland (ed.) (1994): Annäherung an Bruno Bettelheim. Mainz (Grünewald): 49–60.

Critical reviews of Bettelheim (works and person)

* Angres, Ronald: "Who, Really, Was Bruno Bettelheim?", "Commentary", 90, (4), October 1990: 26-30.
* Bernstein, Richard: "Accusations of Abuse Haunt the Legacy of Dr. Bruno Bettelheim", "New York Times", 4 November 1990: "The Week in Review" section.
* Bersihand, Geneviève: "Bettelheim", R. Jauze, Champigny-sur-Marne, 1977.
* Dundes, Alan: "Bruno Bettelheim's Uses of Enchantment and Abuses of Scholarship". "The Journal of American Folklore", Vol. 104, N0. 411. (Winter, 1991): 74-83.
* Ekstein, Rudolf (1994): Mein Freund Bruno (1903–1990). Wie ich mich an ihn erinnere. In: Kaufhold, Roland (ed.) (1994): Annäherung an Bruno Bettelheim. Mainz (Grünewald), S. 87–94.
* Eliot, Stephen: "Not the Thing I Was: Thirteen Years at Bruno Bettelheim's Orthogenic School", St. Martin's Press, 2003.
* Federn, Ernst (1994): Bruno Bettelheim und das Überleben im Konzentrationslager. In: Kaufhold, Roland (ed.) (1999): Ernst Federn: Versuche zur Psychologie des Terrors. Gießen (Psychosozial-Verlag): 105–108.
*
* Fisher, David James: Psychoanalytische Kulturkritik und die Seele des Menschen. Essays über Bruno Bettelheim (co-editor: Roland Kaufhold), Gießen (Psychosozial-Verlag)
* Fisher, David James: "Bettelheim: Living and Dying". Amsterdam, New York, NY, 2008 (Rodopi)
* Frattaroli, Elio: "Bruno Bettelheim's Unrecognized Contribution to Psychoanalytic Thought", "Psychoanalytic Review", 81:379-409, 1994.
* Heisig, James W.: "Bruno Bettelheim and the Fairy Tales", "Children's Literature", 6, 1977: 93-115.
* Kaufhold, Roland (ed.): Pioniere der psychoanalytischen Pädagogik: Bruno Bettelheim, Rudolf Ekstein, Ernst Federn und Siegfried Bernfeld, psychosozial Nr. 53 (1/1993)
* Kaufhold, Roland (Ed.): Annäherung an Bruno Bettelheim. Mainz, 1994 (Grünewald)
* Kaufhold, Roland (1999): „Falsche Fabeln vom Guru?“ Der “Spiegel“ und sein Märchen vom bösen Juden Bruno Bettelheim, Behindertenpädagogik, 38. Jhg., Heft 2/1999, S. 160-187.
* Kaufhold, Roland: Bettelheim, Ekstein, Federn: Impulse für die psychoanalytisch-pädagogische Bewegung. Gießen, 2001 (Psychosozial-Verlag).
* Kaufhold, Roland/Löffelholz, Michael (Ed.) (2003): “So können sie nicht leben” - Bruno Bettelheim (1903 – 1990). Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie 1-3/2003.
* Marcus, Paul: "Autonomy in the Extreme Situation. Bruno Bettelheim, the Nazi Concentration Camps and the Mass Society", Praeger, Westport, Conn., 1999.
* [http://richardpollak.com/work3.htm Pollak, Richard] : "The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim", Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997.
* Raines, Theron: "Rising to the Light: A Portrait of Bruno Bettelheim", Knopf, New York, 2002.
* Sutton, Nina: "Bruno Bettelheim: The Other Side of Madness", Duckworth Press, London, 1995. (Translated from the French by David Sharp in collaboration with the author. Subsequently published with the title "Bruno Bettelheim, a Life and a Legacy".)
* Zipes, Jack: "On the Use and Abuse of Folk and Fairy Tales with Children: Bruno Bettelheim's Moralistic Magic Wand", in Zipes, Jack: "Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales", University of Texas Press, Austin, 1979.

External links

* [http://cognitions.net/jinny.html Missing the Message: A Critique of Bettelheim's Analysis of "The Jinny and the Fisherman", website of Alexandra O'Neal]
* [http://www.suesske.de/kaufhold-1.htm Reviews of Dr. Roland Kaufhold's Bettelheim, Ekstein, Federn] in German
* [http://www.suesske.de/buch_fisher.htm Thomas Aichhorn, Essays über Bruno Bettelheim] in German
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