Bettelheim, Bruno

Bruno Bettelheim (August 28, 1903- March 13, 1990) was a Jewish-Americanwriterand child psychologist. He is known for his theories on autism, which generally blame the disease on a poor emotional relationship with the mother.

Background and career

Upon his father's death, he was forced to leave university in order to care of his family lumberbusiness. After ten years, however, he returned to his education, earning a degree in philosophy, and authoring a dissertationon the history of art. Although interested in psychologyfor much of his life, Bettelheim never studied it formally.

As a Jewin Austria, he was interned in Dachauand Buchenwaldconcentration campsfrom 1938to 1939. His release from internment was purchased, as remained possible prior to the commencement of hostilities in World War II. Bettelheim arrived in the United Statesin 1939, becoming a naturalized citizenin 1944. Here, he eventually became a professor of psychology, teaching at the University of Chicagofrom 1944until his retirement in 1973. He was trained in philosophy (Ph.D. in esthetics), and was analyzed by the Viennese psychoanalyst Richard Sterba.

The most significant part of Bettelheim's professional life was spent serving as director of the Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago, a home for emotionally disturbed children. He wrote books on both normal and abnormal child psychology, and was well respected by many during his lifetime. His book The Uses of Enchantment recast fairy talesin terms of the strictest Freudianpsychology, sometimes with an excessive literalism that has been seen as comedic.

He suffered from depressionat the end of his life, committing suicidein 1990, six years after the death of his beloved wife, Trude, from cancer.

Bettleheim's career can be viewed as a classic example of the dangers of pseudoscientific methodology. Bettleheim's most significant theory claimed that unemotional, cold mothering was the essential cause of childhood autism. This theory, now soundly repudiated by science, caused severe damage to thousands of families who believed his untested claims.

A controversial figure

Bettelheim was convinced that autismhad no organic basis, but was caused entirely by cold mothers (dubbed "refrigerator mothers", originally by Leo Kanner), and absent fathers. "All my life," he wrote, "I have been working with children whose lives have been destroyed because their mothers hated them." Other Freudian analysts, as well as scientists who were not psychiatrists, followed Bettelheim's lead in blaming the mother for the child's autism. Although neurology has made little (if any) progress in identifying the causes of autism, Bettelheim's view is now commonly regarded as erroneous. Bettelheim wrote a book about autism entitled The Empty Fortress. His main legacy resides in three concepts: the concept of "milieu-therapy", of "extreme situation", and of "empty fortress".

Beyond the controversy regarding Bettelheim's psychological theories, controversy has been raging regarding his own history and personality. After Bettelheim's suicide allegations surfaced that Bettelheim had a dark side. Three ex-patients questioned his work, characterizing him as a cruel tyrantand critics, such as Richard Pollak, allege that he was a pathological liar who invented much of what his official biography tells of his life before reaching the United States. Critics also claim that he often spanked his patients despite the fact that rejected spanking as "brutal". Treatments based on his autism theories failed to help children, and his reported rates of cure (around 85%) were found to be fraudulent.

A movie appearance

Bruno Bettelheim accepted Woody Allen's invitation to appear as himself in the film Zelig (1983).

See also

• Bernard Rimland
• Controversies in autism

Bibliography

Major works

• 1943"Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations", Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38: 417-452.
• 1950Love Is Not Enough: The Treatment of Emotionally Disturbed Children, Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
• 1954Symbolic Wounds; Puberty Rites and the Envious Male, Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
• 1955Truants 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.)
• 1960The Informed Heart: Autonomy in a Mass Age, The Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
• 1962Dialogues with Mothers, The Free Press, Glencoe, Ill.
• 1967The Empty Fortress: Infantile autism and the birth of the self, The Free Press, New York
• 1969The Children of the Dream, Macmillan, London & New York (About the raising of children in kibbutz.)
• 1974A Home for the Heart, Knopf, New York. (About Bettelheim's Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago for schizophrenic and autistic children.)
• 1976The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, Knopf, New York
• 1979Surviving and Other Essays, Knopf, New York (Includes the essay "The Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank".)
• 1982On Learning to Read: The Child's Fascination with Meaning (with Karen Zelan), Knopf, New York
• 1982Freud and Man's Soul, Knopf, New York
• 1987A Good Enough Parent: A book on Child-Rearing, Knopf, New York
• 1990Freud's Vienna and Other Essays, Knopf, New York

Critical Review of Bettelheim (Works and Person)

• Angres, Ronald: "Who, Really, Was Bruno Bettelheim?", Commentary, 90, (4), October 1990: 26-30.
• Bersihand, Geneviève : Bettelheim, R. Jauze, Champigny-sur-Marne, 1977.
• Eliot, Stephen: Not the Thing I Was: Thirteen Years at Bruno Bettelheim's Orthogenic School, St. Martin's Press, 2003.
• 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.
• Krumenacker, Franz-Josef: Bettelheim: Grundpositionen seiner Theorie und Praxis, Reinhardt/UTB für Wissenschaft, München, 1998.
• Marcus, Paul: Autonomy in the Extreme Situation. Bruno Bettelheim, the Nazi Concentration Camps and the Mass Society, Praeger, Westport, Conn., 1999.
• 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.
• -Author unknown-: "Accusations of Abuse Haunt the Legacy of Dr. Bruno Bettelheim", New York Times, 4 November 1990: "The Week in Review" section.

External links

• {{{2|{{{name|Bruno Bettelheim}}}}}}at the Internet Movie Databasede:Bruno Bettelheim

es:Bruno Bettelheim fr:Bruno Bettelheim nl:Bruno Bettelheim ja:???????????? pl:Bruno Bettelheim pt:Bruno Bettelheim sk:Bruno Bettelheim

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