The psychologist Bruno Bettelheim is known as the founder of theories that study the behavior of people in extreme conditions. His writings on the role of reading in raising a child, on autism and male growth have become worldwide bestsellers. Of his 14 works, several have been translated into Russian, and they will be discussed in this article.
about the author
Bruno Bettelheim was born in Vienna in 1903. The son of a logger, he studied the history of art and literature, in 1938 received a doctorate. In the same year, after the Nazi occupation, he was sent to a concentration camp. In 1939 he was released and emigrated to the United States. He worked as a teacher at Rockford College.
In 1943 he published an article on the existence in fascist camps, which immediately became famous. After that, almost every published work of a scientist becomes a public event. In 1944, he received a place in the department of psychology and was simultaneously invited to the position of director of a rehabilitation school.
Scientist works
Bettelheim applied a psychoanalytic approach to raising children. He reflected his studies in the books “Runaways from Life”, “Not only Love”. The scientist was looking for methods of treating childhood disorders that would help a child with disabilities to become an active member of society. His works contain many ideas for working with healthy children.
The scientist’s pen belongs to the books “Enlightened Heart”, “Children of Dreams”, “On the Benefits of Fairy Tales”, “Do I Love”, “Empty Fortress”. Bruno Bettelheim literally created one of his books, memorizing line by line, in a concentration camp. Thus was written the work "Enlightened Heart".
Memory book
B. Bettelheim spent two years in fascist camps - in Dachau and Buchenwald. As the scientist testified, the purpose of the concentration camps was "amputation of the personality" - the formation in a person of an "ideal prisoner" who would not reason, but automatically, without hesitation, carry out all the commands of the overseer.
For two years, Bettelheim analyzed the condition and behavior of those around him in the camp and composed a book in his mind, memorizing line by line. This book, according to the author, protected him from the horrors of the camp, helped to remain human and saved his life. She came out in 1960 under the name "Enlightened Heart."
Bruno Bettelheim in his work outlined a methodology for transforming a healthy person into a creature devoid of personality. “Ideal prisoners” are very similar, they are easy to control, thousands of such creatures can be commanded by one person.
Perfect prisoner
According to Bettelheim, amnesia develops as one progresses to this condition. For him, only what is happening in the camp is real, and the world does not exist outside the barbed wire. He begins to forget the names of his parents, his hometown. The worst thing is that he feels that something is happening to him, and this accelerates the destructive process. Summarizing the basic strategies for suppressing personality, Bruno Bettelheim formulated and highlighted key strategies that are universal and, in general, are repeated at different levels of life: from family to state. The Nazis gathered them in a single concentrate of horror and violence in concentration camps:
- Monkey business. Forcing people to do meaningless work, dragging stones from place to place, digging holes with bare hands is a favorite pastime of the Nazis.
- Mutually exclusive rules, the violation of which is inevitable. These rules create an atmosphere of constant fear and force people to negotiate with warders in exchange for certain services.
- Collective responsibility. In conditions when the price of error is high, all members of the group become overseers to each other.
Last line
Bruno Bettelheim claimed that at first a person stopped doing anything of his own free will. Fulfilled orders automatically, without any selectivity. Prisoners who stopped internal resistance can be seen right away: they walked without raising their legs while walking, characteristically shuffling. Then the man looked only in front of him, and soon death inevitably came. The tasks of the Nazis were as follows:
- To make a person believe that nothing depends on him is to create an unpredictable environment in which it is impossible to plan anything, forcing him to live according to instructions and stopping any initiative.
- Make pretend that people do not see and do not hear. Reading the Enlightened Heart by Bruno Bettelheim, you understand that such situations are not uncommon even now. For example, the author describes how an SS man beats a prisoner, and a passing column accelerates sharply. All together turned their heads to the side and accelerated, showing all their appearance that they had not noticed what was happening. This also happens in families where there is violence. One of the relatives understands and sees everything, but pretends to know nothing.
- Make people cross the last line. Each person has an inner trait, because of which there is no return. It is necessary to recognize where it goes, and even under pain of death not to transgress it. Otherwise, further life becomes meaningless.
Only those who reserved the right to choose survived. Own attitude to what is happening is the last, in the conditions of the camp, but the most important human freedom. That is, a person lives only as long as he wants to live.
About the benefits of magic
A significant new success was Bruno Bettelheim's book Psychoanalysis of a Fairy Tale, published in 1973, and Bearable Parents, published in 1987. The work “Psychoanalysis of a Tale” was included in the 25 best books on psychoanalysis. This is a wonderful and very important work. Here, the scientist writes that children's books are intended either for entertainment or to teach children to read.
“Nothing enriches and satisfies children like fairy tales,” Bruno Bettelheim writes about the benefits of magic. Tales arouse curiosity, stimulate the imagination, attract attention, and such literature develops mental abilities, helps to better understand your own emotions and restore order in your inner home.
Tales allow the child to understand that his psychological difficulties have solutions. They are offered by any fairy-tale character: Cinderella, Boy with a finger, Little Red Riding Hood. They are full of confidence and decide on dangerous matters, not knowing what lies ahead. They are not familiar with the feeling of separation, anxiety. Tales contribute to the development of the child, he can transfer his feelings to any of the heroes, for example, throw out aggressiveness on an evil stepmother, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim is sure.
The use of fairy tales is that they make the kids experience the simple adventures of the characters, the children create a reality that they can then cope with. With the help of a wonderful fairy tale restore mental balance, and sometimes correct violations in behavior.
Dialogues with Mothers
The book "Do I Love", published in 1962, is written in a question-answer format. This wonderful book contains discussions with parents at Dr. Bettelheim’s seminars. The author addresses equally to both fathers and mothers.
All parents want the child to grow up a free, strong personality, and at the same time impose their opinion on him. It often happens that parents do not agree on what they want from the child, and then all their efforts in education are in vain. Based on his experience working with adolescents and as a father of three children, Dr. Bettelheim explains in detail how to act in a particular situation that parents face daily.
The universal theories given in other works are too general or allow for so many options for solving the problem that parents are lost and do not know how to act in a particular case. The author gives specific examples and gives advice on how parents behave.
Often, there is more to the child’s behavior. How to find the reason for this behavior? In the manual for parents of Dr. Bettelheim, you can find answers to various questions, step by step, question by question, he helps parents get to the "root of the problem", then the right solution comes spontaneously.
In 1944, B. Bettelheim headed a clinic for children with nervous disorders and psychological trauma. If destructive living conditions disintegrate a person, then an enabling environment does the opposite. Embodying his ideas, Bettelheim turned the school into one of the exemplary correctional institutions.
The nature of autism
Dr. Bettelheim was best known for his book The Empty Fortress on the treatment of children with autism. She came out in 1967, was widely recognized among specialists. Although the theory itself is considered obsolete and erroneous, it will be interesting to specialists as an example of a certain stage in the history of the study of autism.
Criticism and reviews
Dr. Bettelheim passed away in 1990 as an unrivaled healer of human souls. A little time passed, and the devastating article by psychoanalyst R. Ekstain that Bettelheim turned a children's school almost into a concentration camp appeared in the New York Times. The accusation seemed unthinkable, but the testimony of former patients of the clinic and their parents fell upon the publication. It is not known why they were silent for so many years.
Others, by contrast, argued that Dr. Bettelheim was a model of integrity and professionalism. A wave of criticism forced experts to take a closer look at the works of Dr. Bettelheim. The results were deplorable. He claimed that he had reached 85% of the cure for autism, but in fact such results could not be achieved either before or after.
A careful analysis of the school showed that Dr. Bettelheim set the diagnosis of autism himself, according to criteria known only to him, and in many cases it was a question of children suffering from emotional disorders. Critically, scientists, of course, reacted to the book "The Empty Fortress." Whether this criticism is fair or not, is up to the experts to judge. But, despite the conflicting facts from the doctor’s biography, Bruno Bettelheim’s books are worth reading because his experience as a scientist is invaluable.