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unattractive, given his small stature, bulging nose and bespectacled eyes. Like
every insecure teenager, he tended to lose himself in books. In the end, at
Gina's urging, he returned to the University of Vienna to take a Doctorate in
Humanities at the age of 35-in June 1938, a few months after the
Anschluss.
Throughout his book, Pollak keeps corning back to Bettelheim's various
bouts of depression which were due to these early experiences. Although
Bettelheim was in the habit of explaining everyone else's symptoms via psy–
choanalysis, that was not how he dealt with his own malaise. It is not even
clear whether his analysis with Sterba for depression was in 1929, as he assert–
ed at least once, or around 1936, as Gina, the most knowledgeable witness,
recalls. She said that it was for at most a year, whereas he claimed that it was
for "at least two years." Still, how could he admit that he was nearly unana–
lyzed while being extolled as one of the most prestigious psychotherapists,
not necessarily by the profession, but in the public realm. Did he fear that
if
the media were to find out that he was in treatment his house of cards might
collapse, that the prince would revert to being the frog? Thorough self–
knowledge, however, is the bedrock of a psychoanalyst's work, its inner core.
Yet Bettelheim did not take seriously Kurt Eissler's advice that no one should
run a school for emotionally disturbed children without having been fully
analysed. This lack, I believe,
was
responsible for the authoritarian stance
Bettelheim took towards the families of his wards, for his unrelenting insis–
tence that parents be kept away from their children after they were entrusted
to him, for telling Pollak that his father was a "schlemiel" who stayed away
from emotions and that his mother paraded as a saint and a martyr and didn't
accept responsibility for Stephen's "pseudo feeble-mindedness."
According to Pollak, Bettelheim was more antagonistic to mothers, pri–
vately and publicly, than other prominent psychotherapists; and he felt a good
deal more hostili ty towards his own mother than he ever recorded or admit–
ted. He was happily married to Trude Weinfeld, after a stormy
affair
in
Vienna-before she emigrated to Australia-and after Gina left
him
soon
after his arrival in America. The marriage to Trude revolved around Bruno,
which she apparently didn't mind. I should add that she had been madly in
love with him as soon as they met, and that this type of one-sided relation–
ship too was very Viennese. Later on, most of the couple's close friends were
refugees, and they included Gina and her husband, Peter Weinmann. But even
then, Bettelheirn did not stop thinking about himself as the small, ugly Jew,
and as an outsider---despite his success and celebrity.
As
he got older, failing
health intensified these emotions, especially after Trude died.
Given all these handicaps, how did Bettelheirn manage to surround
him–
self with so many devoted friends and colleagues, and build up the
Orthogenic School along with his own reputation
if,
as transpired increas–
ingly after his death, his castle was erected on a bed of sand and maintained
