Bettleheim biography

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(Translated from the French by David Sharp in collaboration with the author. In: Kaufhold, Roland (ed.) (1999): Ernst Federn: Versuche zur Psychologie des Terrors.

bettleheim biography

His dissertation, on the history of art, was entitled The Problem of Beauty in Nature and Modern Aesthetics.

In the late 1930s, Bettelheim traveled across Nazi state hospitals in Germany during the infamous "T-4" euthanasia program, the start of his research in mental patients. Knopf. Retrieved on February 2, 2007.

  • Frattaroli, Elio.

    Amsterdam, New York, NY, 2008 (Rodopi)

  • Frattaroli, Elio: "Bruno Bettelheim's Unrecognized Contribution to Psychoanalytic Thought", Psychoanalytic Review, 81:379-409, 1994.

    Bettelheim suffered from depression at the end of his life, especially after the death of his wife in 1984. He accomplished this by telling compelling stories about children whose disturbing, fascinating behaviors made normality stand out in sharp relief.

    He spent ten and a half months incarcerated, first in Dachau and then in Buchenwald. 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. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation.

    He was among the last Jews awarded a doctorate degree before the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938.

    Legacy

    Despite the controversy surrounding his life and work, and his theories on autism having been long dismissed, Bettelheim made significant contributions to the treatment of children.

    Controversies

    Political controversy

    Bettelheim became one of the most prominent defenders of Hannah Arendt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem.

    Das letzte Gespräch zwischen Bruno Bettelheim und Rudolf Ekstein. In 1944, he was offered the position of director of the Orthogenic School for emotionally disturbed children, especially those suffering from autism. Many parents who had children at the school claimed that his treatment had helped their children and continued to consider him a compassionate man.

    In particular, much of his celebrated psychoanalytical treatise on fairy tales, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales is alleged to have been plagiarized (Finn 1997). In 1930, he married a schoolteacher who was a disciple of Anna Freud.

    • Bruno Bettelheim, 1903-1990

    Bruno Bettelheim (courtesy of University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf1-09273], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

    One of the most prominent psychoanalysts of the post-World War II era, Bruno Bettelheim’s books spread the Freudian tradition in the United States and internationally at the high point of its popularity.

    Life

    Bruno Bettelheim was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of a wood merchant from a middle class Jewish family.