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knew how to raise elusive questions about history, ethics, psychoanalysis,
children and parents; he knew how to research, how to read texts, how to
investigate and explicate psychological and emotional nuances, often grasping
the meaning of things between the lines. He was determined not to get
bogged down in highly technical or overly specialized questions, not to write
in jargon. He developed a distinct style and a discernable voice in which he
communicated with people on an emotional level, with much empathy.
He produced a distinguished and varied body ofwritings that demands
a radical distinction between authentic feeling and cheap sentimentality, be–
tween rigorous analysis and reciting established pieties, between realistic
confrontations with difficult choices and an objection to positions flowing from
denial, avoidance, or reaction-formation. Most of his texts abound with a sin–
cere humanity, compassion, and care, especially those devoted to compre–
hending the inner lives of the severely disturbed child; yet his works also
have served to deromanticize and demystiry. In short, his humanism was
neither simple-minded, soft, overly optimistic, nor oblivious to reality.
For Bettelheim, the privilege ofbeing a psychoanalyst and of practicing,
teaching, transmitting, and modirying psycholanalytic theory and practice,
consisted in a deeply ingrained respect for the human being, for his or her
own privacy, individual uniqueness, struggles, quest for truth, aspirations to–
wards personal forms ofliberation, creativity, and playfulness. These values
may reflect his identification with Freud and with the classical liberalism of the
Viennese Jewish bourgeoisie of the interwar years. His is one of the last
truly independent voices in the world of psychoanalysis, one of those
irreverent iconoclasts who never cared about establishment institutions or
psychoanalytic institutes, having considerable disdain for regional, national, or
international psychoanalytic doctrinal quarrels. He regarded these quarrels as
beside the point.
As
a self-assured, critical voice, he spoke his mind - often in a combat–
ive, ascerbic, intolerant way, but always thoughtfully, succinctly, pungently.
On certain issues it was futile to debate with him; he was often opinionated,
rather harsh in his judgments - for instance on the politics of the antiwar
movement in the 1960s, on the critique ofAmerican foreign policy, on the
theoretical attempt to link Marxism with psychoanalysis. However, even in
his decline, dialogue with him was possible; he could be astonishingly disarm–
ing, empathizing with problems he knew to be existentially and psychologi–
cally pressing.
Bettelheim was full of stories. In the right mood , he was ready to
reminisce. For him psychoanalysis was not an impossible profession, it was a
"spooky" profession, practiced by a gallery of rogues, geniuses, shamans,
priests, false prophets, narcissists, exhibitionists, functionaries, and occasionally
spooks. However, when all was said and done , he maintained a pride in
psychoanalysis, finding it intriguing, impossible to pin down , and endlessly
