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Summary: The San Francisco Chronicle
Review: As one father put it: "Bettelheim really sowed seeds of evil." That is a harsh epitaph, but Pollak presents compelling evidence that Bettelheim may well have deserved it
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Summary: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
Review: Devastating.... Under Mr. Pollak's magnifying glass, Bettelheim is seen in a new, harsh light, and stands exposed as a brilliant charlatan
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Summary: Disgusting how Academics and the media were sucked in by DrB
Review: I will now read this based on an excellent review of Pollak's book by Eve Leeman, of Columbia Univ, in THE LANCET (Sept 13, 1997,pp819-820) and the many interesting reviews Amazon.com has posted.
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Summary: Does anyone want the views of an autistic?
Review: I'm a 60-year-old autistic and have read lots of books and articles both by and about Bruno Bettelheim. This one takes the cake, though. It's so easy to skew facts in order to defame genius.Consider this: Bettelheim openly admitted he smacked his patients, but only in response to violent behavior. No one gets mad at Benjamin Spock for suggesting that it's not such a bad thing to strike your child, just so long as you include a display of rage, rather than a cold-blooded reptilian front! When Annie Sullivan clobbered seven-year-old Helen Keller, everyone thought that was just precious. But when Bettelheim did it occassionally, he became grist for Pollak's cheap-shot rumor mill. In fact, Helen Keller is a good case in point to back Bettelheim's theories of autism. When Keller was 19 months old, according to her parents, she was precocious and could talk perfectly well. After her traumatic illness, she not only lost her ability to talk--as typical of most autistics--she started exhibiting COMPLETE, FULL-BLOWN autistic behavior. She would perseverate over meaningless details and rock back and forth. In fact, modern reseach has shown that 31 per-cent of all blind children become autistic at age two. Bettelheim believed that nobody is born autistic, but they may have inherited predispositions. Moreover, he believed that one can acquire a predisposition due to environment. If
Bettelheim was right, that autism has multiple causes, it would explain why autism is so elusive to modern researchers who are careful to rule out in advance any theoretical construct that might suggest environmental determinants, because such researchers are afraid of upsetting enraged mommies. When is the last time anyone has suggested that mothers like the one in "The Three Faces of Eve" might cause mental problems? This is deliberate ignorance, and Pollak has encouraged it. His book is a disaster to millions of autistic children who must now abandon all hope, or place it in the hands of neurologists. Unfortunately, no neurologist on Earth offers a cure for autism.
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Summary: THE EMPEROR HAD NO CLOTHES
Review: In this day and age of widespread , scatter-shot debunking of the public personages , we are often treated to tabloid-style attacks and 'exposes' of the high and mighty. While Bruno Bettelheim hardly ranks up there in widespread public identification with Madonna, George Clooney, Bill Clinton or even an O.J. Simpson, he was a widely known, highly respected figure in the world of academic and layman's psychology. The vast majority of those who were familiar with Bettelheim's works and personna knew almost nothing of the real man, behind the veil of academic journals, newspaper articles, appearances on television and magazine profiles. Those few who truly knew Bettelheim personally sharply divided: those who loved him, blindly(I guess, in the spirit of the Freudian world that Bettelheim was a posseur in, people had 'Transferences' toward him--in the true Freudian sense of the word), and those who knew him, worked with him---and detested him for the reasons sharply outlined in Richard Pollaks' exceedingly well written, ably researched and important book. Very few people 'in the know', it seems, about Bettelheim were neutral about him; he was a polarizing figure. Pollak's book is hardly the stuff of tabloid journalism--nor is it a thoroughly angry, declarative screed by an angry man. Pollak definetely has a point of view--and he marshalls what he believes to be exculpatory evidence for his case. Richard Pollak has aroused the same 'furies' that were ignited when the first Chicago READER letters by former Orthogenic School student appeared soon after Bettelheim's 1990 suicide--the fury and defense of Bettelheim's few remaining apologists. It was to be, for these apologists:Their Bruno, Right of Wrong. Others had a balanced rendering of the full texture of the man--the liar, the braggart, and the hyperbole-laden intellectual terrorist, along with whom they also regarded as the nurturing, humane, emotionally vibrant healer of mothers needing dialogue and the troubled needing balance. No matter what you may or may not know or feel about Bettelheim, dismissal of Pollak's work by the hard-line apologists reminds me of the famous words of a little known die-hard Nixon-defending Indiana Congressman who,when confronted by the final, incriminating tapes that sealed Nixon's adieu, declared: "Hey! Don't confuse me with the facts!" That Congresman was defeated in the next election; and those who will go down fighting to their last defending Bettelheim blindly against all charges will be hard pressed to refute the solid evience woven together by journalist Richard Pollak.
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Summary: Detroit Free Press
Review: It seems indisputable now that Bettelheim was a fraud and an inveterate liar...[Pollak's] scholarship seems scrupulous, and his conclusions just--which makes him a writer very unlike his subject
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Summary: Another Idol Falls
Review: On an episode of "The Simpsons," Bart is climbing on a psychiatrist's bookcase and knocking off some tomes. The psychiatrist says, "Stop that! Some of those books haven't been discredited yet!" "The Creation of Dr. B" is truly an astonishing book. To think that such a fraud could obtain such a prominent position in American life makes you wonder what other now-respected people out there are con-men and phonies. Pollak's book is a model of research and writing: those post-modern people who say we can never come to a definite knowledge of the truth should eat their words after reading this. "Dr. B" is one of those recent works that help show the insanity of the Freudian dominace of psychology in the mid 20th century. Can we now lump it with phrenology, as it deserves to be?
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Summary: Another Idol Falls
Review: On an episode of "The Simpsons," Bart is climbing on a psychiatrist's bookcase and knocking off some tomes. The psychiatrist says, "Stop that! Some of those books haven't been discredited yet!" "The Creation of Dr. B" is truly an astonishing book. To think that such a fraud could obtain such a prominent position in American life makes you wonder what other now-respected people out there are con-men and phonies. Pollak's book is a model of research and writing: those post-modern people who say we can never come to a definite knowledge of the truth should eat their words after reading this. "Dr. B" is one of those recent works that help show the insanity of the Freudian dominace of psychology in the mid 20th century. Can we now lump it with phrenology, as it deserves to be?
Rating:
Summary: Another Idol Falls
Review: On an episode of "The Simpsons," Bart is climbing on a psychiatrist's bookcase and knocking off some tomes. The psychiatrist says, "Stop that! Some of those books haven't been discredited yet!" "The Creation of Dr. B" is truly an astonishing book. To think that such a fraud could obtain such a prominent position in American life makes you wonder what other now-respected people out there are con-men and phonies. Pollak's book is a model of research and writing: those post-modern people who say we can never come to a definite knowledge of the truth should eat their words after reading this. "Dr. B" is one of those recent works that help show the insanity of the Freudian dominace of psychology in the mid 20th century. Can we now lump it with phrenology, as it deserves to be?
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Summary: Wake up and smell the child abuse
Review: Pollak does a brilliant job of tearing away the deceptions and rationalizations that made Bettelheim's Orthogenic School seem like an outstanding, cutting edge School for emotionally troubled, mentally ill and autistic children.
The chapter on Bettelheim's brutality against the children really made me wonder how did the staff working with him rationalize his behavior for so many years? I guess some staff were intimidated by him. And some were awestruck by his prestige.
I think indirectly Pollak's book is an indictment against the University of Chicago for so carelessly supporting Bettelheim for so many years - 30 years. Pollak shows how Bettelheim was allowed to surround himself with whatever staff he pleased. And frequently, he chose impressionable, young people who had good reason to believe that Bettelheim's method's were rational since the U of C backed the school. I guess the U of C was so content with Bettelheim's national prestige and with the money he brought to the University that they weren't concerned about his cruel, sadistic side. And I'm sure that U of C officials must have known something about this side of Betttelheim, since he said outrageous things in public.
Also, I guess Pollak's book shows how easy it can be for the ordinary person to witness terrible acts of brutality against a vulnerable population (and troubled children, some as young as 4, living away from their parents for several years is probably one of the more vulnerable populations in the world) yet do and say nothing.
In the book, Bettelheim supporters seem to rationalize that because Bettelheim was so brilliant that he could somehow abuse children in an effective, therapeutic way. They decided that his role of the Big Bad Wolf would help sick children overcome the terror of their inner aggression. Now, unless you think mentally ill children are an alien species, what child is going to feel safer knowing that at any moment they might be beaten in the head, slapped repeatedly in the face or have their pants pulled down and be beaten on their behinds with a belt? What child is going to feel safer knowing that all this abuse would be dealt out entirely according to the discretion of one man. And that the staff would either ignore what he did or tell you to overlook the welts he created on your body and just listen to the wisdom of what he said to you. This type of thinking, which Pollak describes in his book, seems like a rationalization of the worst kind. It is extraordinarily simplistic to assume that Bettelheim can help children by beating and shaming them. And Pollak makes it clear that Bettelheim's cruelty towards the children was not an infrequent aberration, but an integral and consistant part of this therapeutic milieu. And, because he is dealing with children, often young children, they cannot stand up to his abuse. They need someone to depend on so much, that they can't resist his tyranny.
And the person Bettelheim picked to be his successor, Jacqui Sanders, never reported his abuse to any authority. And she continued his legacy of hitting children for many years after her directorship. She even wrote a book rationalizing her behavior that was published by the U of C press.
Many who worked at the Orthogenic School, including Jacqui, still rationalize their abusive behavior as superior to restraints or drugs. First of all, I think it's a horrid twist of logic to suggest that beating children is superior to these other methods. Also, at some point in her directorship Jacqui did stop hitting children...I think it's when she finally got licensed as a clinical psychologist. So I guess even she thought of other ways to contain a child who is acting chaotically, possibly when she actually studied the ideas of someone other than Bettelheim. Here's a suggestion for helping a child from me: try finding the child a compassionate therapist. Not a person who witnesses abuse of children and says nothing or a person who is trained to tell a child that getting beaten is okay. But a person who will listen to the child and who will try to help them understand their feelings and behavior.
The sad legacy of the Orthogenic School is that for many years it forced children to accept that getting beaten and shamed was an acceptable form of "care". I personally think that's sick. And I appreciate Pollak for exposing the sadistic underbelly of Bettelheim's School. Many of the students who went there are still alive. Some have families. And some appreciate having a bit of truth exposed to try and understand how the cruelty might have affected us.
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