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looking) as scopophilia, and everyday terms such as
Ich, Es,
and
Ober-ich
into
ego, id, and superego. But he failed to mention that this issue had been dis–
cussed for years by self-respecting psychoanalysts, including Freud and his
daughter Anna.
As
I then speculated in my review of the book, he probably
did not think of writing about it until after Anna Freud's death, the year
before.
Bettelheim's popularity most certainly enhanced the reputation of the
Orthogenic School. However, its achievements unquestionably were due to
his staunch commitment, to a dedicated staff made up primarily of young
acolytes-for whom he served as a sort of therapist-and to his thorough
knowledge of the Freudian canon. Whenever counselors presented
him
with
their questions and anxieties about the children's behavior, or mentioned their
own personal upsets, Bettelheim would recall a friend back in Vienna who
had had the same kind of problem. This teaching via anecdotes, of course, was
not unique to Bettelheim, but his success with this rather loose method led
him
to invent more and more stories, which he himself ultimately seemed to
believe. And he exaggerated the rate of cures, which, in turn, brought
him
to
the attention of educators, psychoanalysts and psychologists, among others.
Moreover, by overstating these accomplishments he attracted more and more
applicants to the school, which meant that he was able to enroll less disturbed
children which, in turn, raised the success rate he could report. As they say,
nothing succeeds like success.
Pollak shows that Emmy Sylvester, a Viennese doctor and psychiatrist
who had helped Bettelheim write the report that first landed
him
his job at
the school, further eased his ascent by collaborating with
him
on six journal
articles-which ensconced
him
as an authority on residential treatment. But
he credited neither her nor anyone else for this triumph. For example, in
A
HomeJor the Heart
(1974), his tenth book, he maintained that his conunitrnent
to saving the children stemmed from his camp experience, from his anger at
the idea of wasted lives, whether trapped behind metal or emotional barbed
wire. By then, he already had been reviewed in every popular and intellectu–
al publication, and was at the acme of his career.
In every one of his books, as well as in
Time,
on "Good Morning
America;' in countless interviews, and in professional and popular articles,
Bettelheim insisted that in his school all spanking was forbidden, as was hit–
ting, or any other kind of physical abuse of children. He held that a child will
learn to stop hitting only by example, and that a therapist must militate
against exercising every bit of unwarranted dominance over a patient. The
first hint of Bettelheim's bad temper, that he didn't practice what he preached,
came in a
NewYork Times Magazine
profile in 1970. Although one former res–
ident had published a novel about life at the Orthogenic School in the early
1980's, the truth came out only after his suicide, in 1990. Some now stated
