It is a great shame that this perceptive, intellectually stimulating, and moving book should be out of print and only available secondhand

"The Informed Heart" warns us that with new technology we may be losing our autonomy. The most telling part of this book for me was when a frustrated customer, after trying to cancel his subscription, finally punches holes all over his subscribtion card. Then the magazine doesn't come. Bettelheim's work is among the first to tell us the psychological impact on the concentration camp on inmates and its implications for our lives.

Janusz Korczak (pseudonym for Henryk Goldszmit) is one of Poland's most beloved children's authors. There is not only this story, but also a sequel... . (One can see why an American publisher might not have wanted to publish the translation.) I am only sorry that neither of these stories are always in print in English. If you can read German you can get both it and its sequel in German from Amazon.de.

The first English translation, brought out by Roy Publishing, was one of the joys of my childhood. I was lucky - a decade or so later I wrote to the librarian at the library where I had checked it out so often in childhood - I wanted the publishing information so I could look for it - and she sent me the book! It is one of my cherished possessions, and I bless that dear librarian always. I like to write, and Januzs Korczak is one of my primary influences, others being C.S. Lewis and Francis Hodgson Burnett (for stories about children who become kings or queens). If you can't read King Matt's story, I recommend those authors, and also E. Nesbit, Connie Willis, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, R.A. MacAvoy, James Blaylock... This list could go on forever, but I will always think it imperfect as long as Korczak cannot be at the top because his stories are unavailable in English.

Lourie's translation gives more of a European flavor to the story; the earlier translation is softer, and it appears that some detail was omitted. My guess is that the earlier translators wanted to present an impression of the story that did not show as much of the sad, or the tongue-in-cheek, quality of the original, because the Polish people were then under occupation by the Nazis. I rather wish Lourie would translate the sequel, and that both books would stay in print in English FOREVER.

This is a truly unique book. The author has a great understanding of the way a kid thinks. The main character is a young boy who is crowned king. He has various adventures as he learns about the world of grownups: going to war, starting a parliament for kids, traveling, etc. My only regret is that I read a library copy and I want to own my own but it is out of print.

This is the first book about Bettelheim and a thoughtful summary of his intellectual contributions in varous areas of our thinking about children, institutions and the transformation of psychoanalysis in the United States.

Bettelehim was and is a controversial figure whether he wrote about parenting, autism, the kibbutz or the potentially therapeutic effects of institutions. This book addresses his ideas and their contribution to our understanding of ourselves and others for whom we care.

Marvelous book - have referred back to it many times for encouragement and reinforcement of my own parenting "beliefs". When I have grandkids, this will be my first gift to the prospective parents

The interesting thing about this book is that it spells out in black and white that Bruno Bettelheim did NOT blame mothers for all autism, and in fact, made it clear he believed that autism can often result from even minor trauma during a critical period if a child has a congenital predisposition. Bettelheim wrote this in 1955 before he was attacked ...

Bettelheim, despite some of his other problems(with autism for example), writes exquisitely on Freud. He refines the translations of Freud's work so eloquently that I actually understand it!

Everything the other reviewers said PLUS... the Oedipus Complex for example, is not an obscure every boy wants to delete his father thing. Read the book and see... it has more to do with the day a son supasses his father and what that does to the triad of Dad, Mom, son.

The American psychiatric community perverted Freud. I cannot believe the watered down, mistranslated, haha way I was taught "Freudian psychology".

Bettelheim reinterprets Freud through better translation AND correlation to his time and place in history. This book left me agahst. I have never encountered such a profound redirection of a tenent so basic to my understanding of anything.
Barbara

This book might have been subtitled, "Retranslating Freud," because that's just what the author does with some of Freud's key terms.

I was gratified to see that "cathexis" could actually be rendered "charge" or "investment": much more consistent with how Freud uses the term. Freud was certainly a reductionist, but mistranslations of his work make him seem absolutely bloodless.

This is one of the best books on Freud I've ever read.

I have read many of Freud's works for years and only recently believed that I gained significant understanding. This came initially from reading Richard Wollheim's book _Sigmund Freud_. Then with both new perspective and renewed interest, I checked this book out from the library.

The first thing one notices when reading it is how articulately it is written, and the ease of understanding by which Bettelheim's prose is understood. The clarity and simplicity is wonderful and adds further support for, and credibility to, his claims.

There is no question of his passion to express his explicit concerns regarding the mistranslation of Freud's corpus. However, further benefit are his explanations of the various myths Freud drew on, how Freud constructed his vocabulary, and how Freud was motivated by love and concern for others in an eternal sense.

This is wonderful book that anyone with even the slightest interest in Freud would do well in reading. I wish I had read it first. However, now it is a valuable resource as Bettelheim's understanding of Freud is so thorough, elegant, poignant, and full of respect for this great man and thinker.

This book could have been so much better.....It is a fascinating story of psychiatry/psychology/psychoanalysis in the middle 1900s, but this book involves one person, and one person only: the author, Stephen Eliot. Why is there nothing about his family members? One photo is characterized as being a picture of his late brother....What? How did he die? Was it integral to the story? It is as though Eliot existed (exists?) in a vacuum, and things just happened to him for no particular reason. Why was he sent to the School in the first place? Why? What did he do, or what happened to him to cause his parents to spend so much money and send their son off to strangers to raise him? It is an interesting tale of Bruno Bettelheim and his practices, but he is a shadow figure in this book. I hope another student, or teacher, from the School writes a book someday that will include more than just one simple focus. Yes, I know this is an autobiography, but the author's self-centerdness, world-revolves-around-me-only got old after the first couple of hundred pages.

A wonderful autobiography from the eyes of a child who lived through a cutting edge treatment for his disorder in an era when mental health was never addressed with children. Uplifting and inspirational.The courage displayed by the author is to be commended. " For those who understand, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't understand, no explanation is possible." From a parent of a current Orthogenic School student,
this author makes the explanation possible for all.

Steven Eliot has penned a most unique and stunningly written memoir of a most unusual childhood: his own spent at the former Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, founded and run by the acclaimed Dr. Bruno Bettelheim at the University of Chicago.

Eliot has shown remarkable courage and clarity of inner voice as he both recounts his life at the world's most unique psychoanalytically-oriented treatment facility for emotionally disturbed children. At all times, Eliot is in touch with both his developing consciousness as a child being treated for emotional maladies, as well as a very wise and inner developed adult who aqpparently has made deep, and at times painful, sense of himself.

Eliot's writing is elegant, clear, free of complex jargon, and can soar to tears-inducing stunning power. Memoirs and autobiographies of 'bad childhoods', demon parents, trying lifestyles, Rags to Riches progressions and escapes from trying and crusihing times, forces and conditions abound, but Eliot's is the first voice that takes us not simply into what was the world's most unique and acclaimed psychoanalytic institition, but he takes on the far harder journey to recount---and indeed make--which is of course within himself. Most memoirs focus on the external pain inflictions and conditions causing the basis of the memoirist's tale. In Eliot's work, he takes us 'Behind Closed Doors' to what was a rareified, purposefeully kept private world( Bettelheim recounted his own experiences as the Orthogenic School's Director and 'star' in his own treatment stories, but he purposefully kept the media and most of the world out of the School for realistic fear that it could become a three-ring media circus if opened up. We also know that Bettelheim's treatment and other practices were highly controversial, and would not be tolerated in today's world, had they come to light when they occured). Moreover, most First-Person accounts of psychotherapy dwell on the dialogues with the therapist, or of issues that emerge in the decidedly one-dimensional world of classical psychoanalysis. To date, the world has not had as deep and forthright a view of what treatment, life and challenges are inside of a psychodynamically-centered milieu therapy institution as they have gotten from NOT THE THING I WAS.. Eliot, though, is not entirely within himself. He has a strong sense of community, and his often humorous, telling and varied anecdotes are within the context of his developing sense of personhood, and how this person came to live amongst others.

The 'Warp and Woof',rather than the sanitized perfect re-creation of the Orthogenic School that has prevailed in print is ably and dynamically captured by Eliot.

Eliot's inner and outer struggle, which was his process of growth and reocnstruction, is painful and challenging. In Eliot's work, we do not merely witness this process; we are forced deeply within it, and in so doing, we are forced to confront mainy painful universal truths about our own upbringing, formative experiences, and significant life cycle events. Steven Eliot's book is destined to remain read and re-read the world over for many, many years to come both for its elegance, clarity and stunning beauty, but also for its important 'travelogue' into a powerful and important inner and outer world.

RICHARD POLLAK, THE AUTHOR OF "THE CREATION OF DR. B", BRINGS TO HIS STORY HIS OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH DR. B. HE ALSO BRINGS WITH HIM A LOT OF PERSONAL RESENTMENT. HE SEEMS UNABLE TO SEPARATE BETTELHEIM'S STRONG FREUDIAN PERSPECTIVE AND BELIEFS FROM BETTELHEIM'S QUESTIONABLE BEHAVIOR. POLLAK'S RESENTMENT GETS THE BETTER OF HIM WHEN HE MAKES DUMB REMARKS LIKE: BETTELHEIM WAS A "A MOMMY HATER"
HIS BIO DOES GIVE SOME GOOD HISTORY ABOUT BETTELHEIM, THE TYPE OF HISTORY WE ALL LIKE TO SEE ABOUT GREAT MEN, ALL THEIR DIRTY LAUNDRY. IN BETTELHEIM'S CASE A LOT OF THIS AIRING OF LAUNDRY IS WARRENTED. BUT BETTELHEIM WAS A TRUE FREUDIAN. AND I FOR ONE HAVE FOUND HIS WRITINGS EXTREMELY ENLIGHTENING. THAT HIS PERSONAL LIFE WAS A [FAKE] DOES NOT TAKE AWAY FROM HIS POSITIVE BELIEFS ABOUT HUMAN NATURE. POLLAK THINKS OTHERWISE.

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?

As a former student at Bettelheim's Orthogenic School, I would like to commend Mr. Pollack for a well written and truthful account of Dr. B. He was NOT the "saint" as people would like to have him be. Mr. Pollack's description of Dr. B is totally accurate in every detail. We, the students, as Mr. Pollack did point out, were very intimidated by Dr. B and were often slapped and beaten by him. The Orthogenic School staff, never came to our aid, themselves, as well, being intimadated by this man. I am glad Mr. Pollak wrote this book and only wish others would also expose the fake Dr.B.

For Dr. Nyiszli to bear witness to the day-in and day-out horror of Auschwitz, and still be able to write about it, is quite unreal. Working as a pathologist for Dr. Mengele in the confines of the crematorium compound, we read of the horrors of the camp, and how both inmates & guards coped.

Reading this book has completely altered my perception on the human being, individually, and as a whole. The events that took place in Auschwitz were so horrific and yet they mustn't be forgotten. Any person claiming a reasonable level of education must read this book. It will literally change the reader forever.

These are two of the most lucid and insightful commentaries I have ever read. Bonhoeffer moves beyond the usually mundane issues often dealt with when discussing the creation and fall. Instead, he places the focus on God and on how the creation and fall effect our lives as human beings.

Temptation is a poignant counterpoint to the story of the fall. It points the way through the darkness of our everyday lives and to the one who is the Way, the Truth and the Life...Jesus Christ.

If you are already familiar with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the wonderfully perceptive German theologian who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, then this book will serve to deepen your understanding of Bonhoeffer's theology. If this is your introduction to Bonhoeffer, then you are in for a delightful surprise. In his short, but dense, analysis of the Genesis story of humanity's creation and fall, Bonhoeffer asks the reader to view the familiar with new eyes - with our eyes fixed firmly on God, not on traditional readings of Genesis. Creation reveals much about God - our sovereign God of life, who worked and rested, and offered the same blessings of work and rest to us. Creation also reveals much about humanity, our desire to be God, and our guilt about disobeying God. In the course of his delightful book, Bonhoeffer wrestles with the fundamental issues of good and evil, of temptation, of the graceful limits imposed by God, and humanity's "freedom." If you, too, have ever wrestled with such questions, this book will guide you and challenge you in your thinking.