To the editors:
I was one of the early counselors at the school, in the late 1940’s, following WW II. A number of us were veterans, who had probably seen more of life by age 21 than Bettelheim had seen at age 40. That fact never seemed to penetrate Bettelheim’s low threshold of awareness of the true nature of the world around him. He tried to bully the counselors as much as he did the defenseless children in the school. He was just a bit more circumspect with us veterans. We stuck with the job though because it was a good one for a U.C. graduate student at the time. The pay was low but fair. Free meals came with the job. We enjoyed working with the children. An on-campus location made it convenient, and, yes, one gained instant social and academic stature because at that time, America and the U. of C.’s love affair with psychoanalysis was at its height.
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What puzzled and frustrated me then, and in later years, was the uncritical acceptance of Bettelheim’s pronouncements by psychoanalytically oriented intellectuals. Sad reality! Poor children!
WB
