Bruno Bettelheim

Bruno Bettelheim (August 28, 1903 - March 13, 1990) was a Jewish-American writer and child psychologist. Upon his father's death, he was forced to leave university in order to care of his family lumber business. After ten years, however, he returned to his education, earning a degree in philosophy, and authoring a dissertation on the history of art. Although interested in psychology for much of his life, Bettelheim never studied it formally.

A controversial figure

Only after his suicide did allegations surface that Bettelheim had a dark side. Although his counselors at the Orthogenic School have continued to consider him a major figure in psychology, after his suicide, three ex-patients questioned his work, characterizing him as a cruel tyrant. In May 2005, more than 90 former counselors and former patients spontaneously gathered in Chicago for a get-together, demonstrating the importance of Bettelheim in their lives and training more than 30 years subsequent to his retirement. In stark contrast to Bettelheim's opponents, who are very active in the media, his supporters did not invite journalists to the gathering.

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Bettelheim was convinced that autism had 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".

Related Topics:
Autism - Refrigerator mothers - Leo Kanner - Psychiatrists

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