Bruno Bettelheim

Bruno Bettelheim (born August 28, 1903, Vienna, Austria—died March 13, 1990, Silver Spring, Md., U.S.) was an Austrian-born American psychologist known for his work in treating and educating emotionally disturbed children.

Bettelheim worked in his family’s lumber business in Vienna, but after the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938 he was placed in German concentration camps at Dachau and Buchenwald because he was Jewish. After his release in 1939, he immigrated to the United States, where he became a research associate with the Progressive Education Association at the University of Chicago. Later he served as an associate professor at Rockford (Ill.) College (1942–44). In October 1943 he wrote an article that won wide and immediate recognition, “Individual and Mass Behaviour in Extreme Situations.” Based on his observations and experiences at Dachau and Buchenwald, this pioneer study examined human adaptability to the stresses of concentration-camp life and considered the effects of Nazi terrorism on personality.

By this time Bettelheim claimed to have earned a doctorate at the University of Vienna. In 1944 he was appointed both assistant professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and head of the university’s Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, a residential laboratory school for 6- to 14-year-old children with serious emotional problems, which became the centre of his work with autistic children. An associate professor from 1947 and professor from 1952, he concerned himself with applying psychoanalytic principles to social problems, especially in relation to the upbringing of children. His writings stem from his work with children and include the books Love Is Not Enough (1950) and Truants from Life (1954). He retired from teaching and the directorship of the school in 1973.

In his writings and research Bettelheim tried to determine what can be done therapeutically to relieve the emotional suffering and turmoil of disturbed children and to help them function in socially useful capacities. His writings also provided many insights for dealing effectively with normal children. His other works include The Informed Heart (1960); The Empty Fortress (1967), on autistic children; Children of the Dream (1967), treating the communal rearing of children in Israeli kibbutzim; and The Uses of Enchantment (1976), in which Bettelheim argued for the importance of fairy tales in child development.

Bettelheim died a suicide, depressed after the death of his wife in 1984 and after suffering a stroke in 1987. His reputation was subsequently clouded by revelations that he had invented his Viennese academic credentials and that he had abused and misdiagnosed a number of the children under his care at the Orthogenic School.