| Bruno Bettelheim |
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BACKGROUND AND CAREER 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. As a Jew in Austria , he was interned in Dachau and Buchenwald Concentration Camp s from 1938 to 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 States in 1939, becoming a Naturalized Citizen in 1944 . Here, he eventually became a professor of psychology, teaching at the University Of Chicago from 1944 until 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 Tales in terms of Freudian psychology. He suffered from Depression at the end of his life, committing Suicide in 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 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". 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 Tyrant and 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 publicly he 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. As if this were not enough, in early 1991 The Washington Post (February 7) and Newsweek (February 18) exposed his plagiarism, which gave rise to the pseudonym "Bruno Borrowheim". A MOVIE APPEARANCE Bruno Bettelheim accepted Woody Allen's invitation to appear as himself in the film '' Zelig '' ( 1983 ). SEE ALSO BIBLIOGRAPHY Major works
Critical Review of Bettelheim (Works and Person)
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