Jimmy Fisher wrote a poignant study of Bettelheim, interviewing him as he lay dying, and including correspondence with Rudi Ekstein, Bettelheim’s close friend.  Here is my review of Fisher’s book.  We can read such books for various motivations — some constructive, some not. In this case, I recommend the book as a humane, sensitive study to understand Bettelheim, an astute thinker, a man who cautioned us about biographies and autobiographies in his Freud and Man’s Soul. With such caution in mind, let’s see what we can learn.   (We acknowledge the journal “Psychoananalysis and History.”)

Bettelheim: Living and Dying

David James Fisher
Volume 8 of Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies
Rodopi Press. (Amsterdam and New York, 2008)

Listen to some statements about psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts.  How do they grab you?Analysts are a suspicious bunch, asking “Why?” “Why now?” “How does this feel?”  They are even skeptical of their own theories, interpretations and techniques, thereby (hopefully, with enough hard honesty) better able not to need to be taken by their own interpretations, unlike their, at times, idealizing patients.And, while analysts are suspicious, the patient is always right (and wrong).Analysts are soul detectives. Continue reading After death, what’s learned: Fisher on Bettelheim (and Ekstein)