Bettelheim: Living and Dying. (Comtemporary Psychoanalytic Studies)

192 Pages·2008·0.62 MB·English

by  David James Fisher

Bettelheim: Living and Dying
Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies
8
Editor Associate Editors
Jon Mills Roger Frie
Gerald J. Gargiulo
Editorial Advisory Board
Neil Altman Otto F. Kernberg
Howard Bacal Robert Langs
Alan Bass Joseph Lichtenberg
John Beebe Nancy McWilliams
Martin Bergmann Jean Baker Miller
Christopher Bollas Thomas Ogden
Mark Bracher Owen Renik
Marcia Cavell Joseph Reppen
Nancy J. Chodorow William J. Richardson
Walter A. Davis Peter L. Rudnytsky
Peter Dews Martin A. Schulman
Muriel Dimen David Livingstone Smith
Michael Eigen Donnel Stern
Irene Fast Frank Summers
Bruce Fink M. Guy Thompson
Peter Fonagy Wilfried Ver Eecke
Leo Goldberger Robert S. Wallerstein
James Grotstein Otto Weininger
Keith Haartman Brent Willock
Robert Maxwell Young
Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies (CPS) is an international scholarly
book series devoted to all aspects of psychoanalytic inquiry in theoretical,
philosophical, applied, and clinical psychoanalysis. Its aims are broadly
academic, interdisciplinary, and pluralistic, emphasizing secularism and
tolerance across the psychoanalytic domain. CPS aims to promote open and
inclusive dialogue among the humanities and the social-behavioral sciences
including such disciplines as philosophy, anthropology, history, literature,
religion, cultural studies, sociology, feminism, gender studies, political thought,
moral psychology, art, drama, and flm, biography, law, economics, biology, and
cognitive-neuroscience.
Bettelheim: Living and Dying
David James Fisher
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008
Cover image: Gustav Klimt, “Tod und Leben”,
©Leopold Museum, Vienna
Cover Design: Studio Pollmann
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-2380-2
©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008
Printed in the Netherlands
TO MY CHILDREN
Ben and Chloe
Contents
Foreword ix
One Introduction 1
Two Psychoanalytic Cultural Criticism and the Soul 15
Three Towards A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Fascism 31
and Anti-Semitism: Perceptions from the 1940’s
Four On Parenting and Playing 49
Five The Relationship and Debates between Bruno Bettelheim 57
and Rudolf Ekstein
Six In Memoriam: Rudolf Ekstein (1912-2005) 119
Seven A Final Conversation with Bruno Bettelheim 127
Eight The Suicide of a Survivor: Some Intimate Perceptions 145
of Bettelheim’s Suicide
Nine Homage to Bettelheim 155
Ten An Open Letter to Newsweek 159
Eleven Concerning Bruno Bettelheim: A Reply to Former 161
Patients from the Orthogenic School
Twelve Two Letters from Bettelheim to the Author 165
About the Author 167
References 169
Index 175
Acknowledgements 181
Foreword
David James Fisher is that unusual breed of psychoanalyst who is also a
historian, cultural theorist, and learned intellectual. In Bettelheim: Living and
Dying, he provides a synoptic yet exacting account of the life and work of
Bruno Bettelheim. Having known Bettelheim personally, Fisher has an
absolute gift for illuminating the perplexities, character traits, and internal
conflicts of a man both revered and vilified, and like a good novelist, draws
the reader in with absorbing clarity. In analyzing Bettelheim’s contributions
and controversies, he offers novel and intimate observations on Bettelheim’s
personal struggles and anguish. Of special interest is how Bettelheim
mentioned the possibility of suicide to Dr. Fisher the last time they met before
he took his own life. Here Fisher provides a very humanistic portrayal of a
brilliant iconoclast with all the character flaws and creative energies that
define his place in psychoanalytic history. Fisher treats his subject matter with
sensitive yet brutal honesty, examining Bettelheim’s paradoxical
contradictions in professional and personal demeanor, private agonies, life at
the Orthogenic School, his friendship with Rudolf Ekstein, his ambivalence
about his Jewishness, and guilt and shame over surviving two Nazi
encampments during the Holocaust. What emerges is a holistic appraisal of a
troubled genius whom was at once an intellectual celebrity, maverick clinician,
and traumatized depressive who had a divided self. This book is a significant
contribution to the field and is bound to be one of the leading
psychobiographies on Bettelheim that has ever been written.
Jon Mills
Editor
Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies