WEBVTT - Part Two: Bruno Bettelheim and The Quest To Make a "Good" Concentration Camp 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:10.600 Also media Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:16.280 about bad people and problematic people, and we've got both 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.400 this week with the story of Bruno Bettelheim, a man who. 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:24.079 Is really really testing my previous conclusion that like there's 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.120 no there's no what wrong way to react to having 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.320 been in a concentration camp. Maybe this way Bruno might 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.680 have might have been the guy to figure out the 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:34.080 wrong way. 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:36.600 Had to lose all sympathy. 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:41.760 Yeah, my guest with me again as in part one, 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.400 Alison Rask and Alison, how are you doing? It's the 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.000 same day, but we pretend it's a separate one. 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.680 I'm good. What I didn't reveal it episode one, which 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.640 I feel like will be more relevant for this part 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.800 of what of his life story is that I actually 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.400 have had and OCD since I was four years old. 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:06.440 So I was someone who was treated for pretty severe 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.720 mental illness as a young child and was put on 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.520 prozac when I was four, and was actually incredibly thankful 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.639 for my parents being proactive in that way and getting 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.280 me the help that I needed. So I'm like, not 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:24.759 so that it is at all against taking children's mental 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.320 health seriously, and it's like kind of a lot of 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:29.560 the activism I do, but I think we're about to 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.800 explore a scenario where that goes. 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:34.440 Wrong, horribly horribly wrong. 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:35.520 Yes, exactly. 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:36.920 Well, it's also you. 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.520 Know, it's interesting because a big part of Bruno's story 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:42.360 and a big part of like where people go wrong 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.039 because like, as you said, it's good to be involved 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:48.840 and care about your children's mental health and the mental 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:53.160 health of children in general. Bruno as a young man 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.680 takes this kid in who is like neurodivergent and her 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:58.600 mom just like I don't want to raise a kid, right, 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.720 find someone else to do it for me. And Bruno's 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.440 whole business as an adult is not just I'm helping 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:06.840 kids who are having problems. It's I am taking these 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.200 kids away from their rich parents who do not want 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.200 to deal with them and handling them, you know, which 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.359 is very different from the healthy version of this where 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.160 you're just because I have a lot of empathy even 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.239 in this time right where we talk about like he's 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.320 diagnosing kids as things that we would not today because 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.760 they just don't. I'm not judgmental of someone who legitimately 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:27.360 is trying to help kids, and its just like we 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.160 called things by different names then we didn't know as 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.280 much as we know now. It's one thing to make errors, 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.480 it's another thing to have your whole goal be what 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:40.280 if a concentration camp but nice for children, which is 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.840 again part of the motivating factor here. 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:47.000 And also like we're still getting stuff wrong now. Oh yeah, 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:53.760 absolutely then it was, but it's still a flawed system. 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.160 And yes, there's also a lot of debate about the 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:01.200 merits of diagnosing at all. Yeah, someone that has found 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:06.880 comfort and and sort of clarity in being diagnosed and 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.840 have had my diagnosis my pretty much my whole life. 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:11.760 But a lot of people don't feel that way, and 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:13.880 so it's it's an interesting debate. 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.000 And that they feel totally totally different about it than 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.280 in the forties. Like one thing they do constantly is 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.440 diagnosed kids as psychotic, right, which you cannot today. That 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:28.600 is not something that happens because like like like you, 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:30.840 the idea that like you would diagnose a child as 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.680 being a psychopath, right, is very normal then, right, And. 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.080 Well now they'll do oppositional defiance a sort right, right, 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:43.720 which is which is like a pathway or whatever towards 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.560 that eventual diagnosis. But there are certain restraints around what 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.920 age you can call people certain what age, you can 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:51.280 give them certain things. 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.000 And and that just like it's the wild West in 0:03:54.480 --> 0:04:03.400 Bruno's era. Now Bruno has at the time, we've you know, 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:05.760 we're starting up here. He has just gotten over to 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.760 the US. He has escaped the Holocaust, and he has 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.720 gotten a job. He's started out as an academic. He had, 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:14.960 you know, lost his family business. At this point, he 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:19.000 has no money. But this lady who you know, he 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.520 had helped raise her daughter, is kind of taking care 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.680 of them, right, And the understanding is that they need 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:26.920 to figure out something, but like they're not immediate, they're 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:28.760 not like on the streets or whatever. Right, and Bruno 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.000 very quickly is able to get work for himself, although 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:37.159 there's also some problematic aspects because his initial gig he 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.880 gets hired to be an English teacher in Portland, Oregon, 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.200 and then World War Two starts and suddenly the idea 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.159 of having an Austrian man teaching English is like, we're 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:51.599 not really bullish on the Austrians right now, even though 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.480 you were a victim of the Nazis, we don't actually 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.160 have a teaching position for you. 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:03.440 It just feed yeah, yeah, the persecution and everything that's 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:04.520 happened to him until then. 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:07.719 Yeah, although it's also there's a degree to which this 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.240 works out well for Bruno because he doesn't really want 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:11.840 to be an English teacher and he doesn't want to 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.039 be an organ he is. He falls in love with 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.240 the idea of the city of Chicago, in part because 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.839 it has a more European layout, so he finds it 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.080 kind of more similar to where he'd come up. He 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.600 is very interested in child development and educational reform. These 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.960 are like academic interests. He's not a professional in these yet, 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:32.839 but this is what he wants for himself. So he 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.240 kind of works as an academic for a few years 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.960 until in nineteen forty four he receives his US citizenship. 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:41.560 That same year, he gets the job that will be 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.159 responsible for most of his fame and for most of 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:46.480 the problematic things he's going to do in his life, 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:51.560 which is directing the Orthogenic School. Now, I know what 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.760 you got you're saying, Robert, Orthogenic School sounds a dystopian 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.039 as fuck. That is a scary name for a school. 0:05:59.880 --> 0:06:02.760 It is a scary name. The word orthogenic comes from 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.120 Greek and it literally means straightening out. So the school 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.640 for straightening out kids. That's a scary thing to call 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.800 us school. It had been established in nineteen fifteen, and 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.320 it was a residential facility where kids were interned until 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.119 their behavior was deemed to be fixed. Right, Like, that's 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.120 the like where it is. So this is a When 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.440 you talk about a residential facility, some of them have 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.640 elements and this is certainly the case at the time 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.279 of like a prison. Right now, this is not one 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.280 of those. This is for kids with resources. 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:33.800 Right. 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.560 These are for kids with whose parents have money. So 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.479 this is not like the the This is not like 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:43.120 the worst versions of these facilities, right And in fact, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.080 from the beginning, this is kind of viewed as a 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.360 response to those facilities which are a lot uglier. It 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.360 was a unique place geared not just for emotionally disturbed kids, 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:55.320 but for and these are the terms they use at 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.479 the time, but specifically for emotionally disturbed children of quote 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:04.080 above average intelligence. Right now, this means rich white kids, 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.920 right ah, yes, yes, that's when we say above average intellect. 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:08.279 Right. 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.880 These are kids whose parents have money, and thus we're 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.040 our goal is to make sure they have a future. 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.280 Right It would be fun to go through history and 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:23.280 find all the different euphemisms for rich white kids. 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.240 And it's in when the school is found in nineteen fifteen, 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:28.320 they do they use these. They don't say this is 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:29.960 a school for rich white kids. They say like, this 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.640 is emostly disturbed but above average intelligence kids. Right as 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:35.640 soon as Bruno takes over, he's like, no, no Ah, 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:37.600 let's just say it's a school for rich white kids. 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:39.520 That's what we're doing, right, that's what we want to 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.400 do here, you know. And as soon as he takes over, 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.760 his first job as director is to turn this into policy. 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.240 Prior to him taking the director job, the school had 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:53.200 not had a white's only policy on paper. Bruno Institute's one. 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.920 He's like, look, let's call a we're racist as fuck. 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.400 We're racist as fuck. It's just say it's white and 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:03.000 again school in nineteen fifteen, is it willing to say that? 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.800 In forty four Brutos like, oh, obviously, we're whites only. 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.320 Like you go right from a concentration camp to like 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.240 a white's only instituting a white's only policy. I mean 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:19.080 it feels so like directly a I need to align myself. 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.040 Oh yeah, the people in power, yes, Like I can 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.440 no longer be viewed as other. And so it's like 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:28.640 this right, because I mean some people at that time 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.960 probably didn't definitely didn't view Jews as white. Like then 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:33.840 it would be like you're not allowed to be at. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:35.760 This school, especially not at this time. 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.120 No, it's his way of like making sure that he's 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.559 in with the with the people in power. 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:42.920 And he is. 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:43.240 He has. 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.640 He does a lot of writing about his attitudes that, like, 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.480 he doesn't like Christianity either because he's not a religious guy, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.520 but he thinks it's better than Judaism. And so the 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.640 school will be specifically a Christian school, even when it 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.800 sort of is educating kids who don't come from Christian families, 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.480 he tries to acculturate them. The only holiday they celebrate 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.040 at the school is Christmas, So his attitude is very 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:10.800 much even when the students are, you know, not from 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:15.920 a Christian background, I want to acculturate them as white Christians, right, and. 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.360 That is be a Jewish man would love to do that. 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.040 Yeah, I know exactly how to celebrate Christmas now. Bruno 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:27.120 justifies his white's only policy by arguing that racialized children 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.439 that means non white kids, would confuse the white kids 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:35.640 and harm their recovery. The term racialized to describe kids 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:40.240 that just start white. No, these kids, they can't handle 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.120 the shock of seeing somewhere explicit white. That'll fuck up 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:43.880 their recovery. 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.120 That person doesn't look exactly like me. I have to 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:47.720 commit a cross. 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:49.480 I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I'm gonna 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:54.720 go rob a bank now. Bruno also wrote that he 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.760 was only interested in white students from quote good high 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.880 class stock. That meant kids who's families could afford to 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.000 send them to college. He instituted a tuition of eight 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.160 to twelve thousand dollars a year to ensure that no 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.559 poor children were educated at the Orthogenic school. If you're 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:14.959 carrying the forties, that's in the forties. Wow, that is 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:20.320 this is like really really like high grade university education. 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.000 Is what this costs per year. And the expectation is 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:25.960 that you will put them in there at least for 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.680 two years, and many of them for like something like 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.559 ten to twelve. Right, he really wants you to give 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.480 your kid to him for that kid's entire childhood. Otherwise 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.480 he can't fix them, right, that's his motivation. 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.079 But then if you do, they come out great. 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:40.240 But then they come out. 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.400 But if they see a person with different colored skin, 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:44.040 they will start screaming. 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:45.520 No, you got to give you gotta let me have 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:47.640 them until they're like twenty, you know, make sure you 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:48.760 don't see anybody else. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.280 They can't see anyone else or they will lose it. 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.480 Yeah, there's like forty to sixty kids at this institution 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:00.000 at a given time. Now, the Bruto also has another 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.160 issue with the school as soon as he takes over. 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.000 You know, first job, make it expensive as shit, only 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.160 white kids. Second job, he has a real issue with 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:10.200 the fact that the orthogenic school there, you know the 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.480 motto is a place to go grow straight and tall, 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.520 allows disabled kids to be educated there. And he doesn't 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.720 like that because somebody with a physical disability can never 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.080 go grow straight and tall. And Bruno's eyes right. So again, 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.520 what the first things the Nazis do is go after 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.160 people with specifically children with disabilities. This is how they 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:34.120 test the the like the the the gas chambers right like, 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:38.080 which are initially like mobile execution vans for disabled people. 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:40.640 What is one of the first things Bruno does when 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.560 he starts this school, No more, get those disabled kids 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:44.600 out of here, none of them. 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:47.640 I mean, he's really telling on himself, right that he 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.520 wrote that paper that people's reaction to being in a 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:55.000 concentration camp is to become a Nazi. Kind of your reaction, brun, 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.040 Just like, no, I've just become a Nazi. Therefore everyone 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.760 else must have as well, okay. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.440 In an article for Disability Studies Quarterly, Gryffin Epstein writes 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.280 whereas prior to his tenure, the school offered a residential 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.680 program for children with epilepsy and cerebral palsy, Betteleim was 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.199 certain that public institutions could handle such cases. This was 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.320 a bold claim, given that public schools weren't mainstreamed in 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.840 the United States until the Education for All Handicapped Children 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.040 Act of nineteen seventy five in the forties. Thus, those 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:29.400 public institutions handling children with epilepsy and CP were abusive 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.079 state institutions, group homes, and hospitals. So he just kind 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.599 of lies and says, ah, the schools can handle, and 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:37.880 then the schools are like, oh, no, we just locked 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:39.480 those kids up. We don't know what to do with them. 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.400 You know, in his opinion, that's handling them right. 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:44.679 That's handling them right. It can't be fixed. You know 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.520 in his attitude, right. Bruno's second act as director of 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.720 the Orthogenic School was to recruit a new population of students, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:55.600 and he focuses mostly on children with autism and others 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.320 who he calls quote young victims of extreme psychosis. And 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.040 the reason he picks these kids and again, we would 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.600 not diagnose them the same way today, but these are 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:09.160 all kids that he sees as not having visible physical disabilities. Right, 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.600 That is the key point, right, That's what he means 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.560 by autism, right, is something is not neurotypical about this kid, 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.440 But they are not, in my eyes, physically disabled. That 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:20.520 is what he means by this, right. 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.360 Not like developmentally delayed in a physical way. 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.840 Yes, yes, yes, and that's certainly how he sees it. 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.520 To continue with that article and constructing a dialectical opposition 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.640 between epilepsy, cerebral palsy and palsy and autism, Bettelheim helped 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.439 to tack to tacitly promote an eugenic logic of unreformable 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:44.520 versus reformable bodies. You know, and yes that is some 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.400 very very Nazi adjacent shit. 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:49.440 The whole time he was in that camp, he was like, 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.000 these are good ideas. 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:51.000 These are good. 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.320 If it wasn't the Nazis doing them, I wouldn't have 0:13:53.360 --> 0:14:01.000 a Yeah, he's taking some wild things from his experience. 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.079 The medical logic behind all of this is also rooted 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.840 in Bruno's writing about concentration camps. In a letter to 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.199 the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:17.079 Bruno's friend Alvin Rosenfeld explained of Bruno's beliefs quote, Bettelheim 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:20.000 showed the world how extreme abuse such as concentration camp 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.920 incarceration could severely distort personalities. That formed the basis of 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.240 his treatment model and laid the foundation for much of 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.080 our thinking about child abuse and post traumatic stress disorder. 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.720 And there is an aspects of this that are positive 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:36.480 and that are undeniably accurate. One of Bettelheim's legitimate achievements 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.040 is that he is an early proponent of the idea 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.400 that if you are working with emotionally disturbed or mentally 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:46.320 ill children and they are engaging in behavior that you 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.880 don't want them to engage in, your first task is 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.480 to understand the internal logic of the child. Why do 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:54.800 they think this is a good idea? 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:55.120 Right? 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:57.960 Why? Why are they choosing to act in this way, right, 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.280 that you should seek to figure out why they want 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.920 to do things. Right, In other words, what's going on 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.360 in the kid's head is important. You know. That is 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.920 a fairly unique idea at the time, right, And that's 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.560 that's a legitimate, you know, positive step. 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:14.960 And also I imagine what are they getting out of it, 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.360 right that, like, what is reinforcing this behavior? 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.160 Right? Yes, I think that that's a big part of it, 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:26.960 and that's overall like a good direction to be going. Unfortunately, 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.040 Bettelheim has another belief, and it's one that he will 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.560 talk openly about. This idea that like, you need to 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.560 understand why the child is making that is doing the 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.600 things that they're doing, their internal logic. He will also 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.800 say the whole time, you should never use physical punishment 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.720 on kids. That you don't do it, there's no cause 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.440 for it. The entire time he is working at this, 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.080 he is running this school, He is physically punishing these kids. 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.040 He just lies about it to parents and to academics 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.760 by saying, don't do this, we never do this. The 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:00.440 whole time he is using physical and mentally abuse, to 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.960 be very clear, right, And it's interesting to me that 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:09.600 he knows he has to deny it, right, cognitive dissonance. 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:14.880 So yeah, yeah, because because it's one thing to believe, 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:20.040 like I think physical you know, punishment gets good results, 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:24.000 but to know that to like also know enough to 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.320 be like, no one will like that, or that's actually 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:28.640 not true, but that's what I want to do to 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.440 get the quickest results, or yeah, it's horrifying. I mean 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.280 it is very interesting. Like all research shows that any storm, 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:41.240 any form of physical punishment is not helpful, right, even 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.200 spanking has been like proven that it is not good. 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:48.200 It's interesting to me that if he were to have 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:50.400 said at this time, obviously you spank kids, you know, 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.480 sometimes you slap them a little bit, that would not 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.920 have been controversial. That would have been in the forties, 0:16:56.080 --> 0:17:00.920 well within the standards of like normal childhood education. Right. 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:03.520 The fact that he's like, no, no, no, you should 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.480 never do this, but is still doing it is so 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:07.320 interesting to me. 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:09.280 He's a deeply troubled man. 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.440 Yeah. This guy. Alvin Rosenfeld, who was Bruno's colleague and friend, 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.480 defends the fact that kind partly defends the fact that 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.920 Bettelheim uses physical violence. He argues that unlike most institutions 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:24.639 at the time. The Orthogenic school didn't use shock therapy, 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.600 it didn't have restraints or any other violent tools, but 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:29.760 sometimes the kids were so out of control that they 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.800 needed physical intervention, and Bruno courageously handled that unpleasant task 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.080 for his subordinates, assuring that quote they were free to 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:41.920 be far more nurturing. He admits that Bettelheim sometimes meted 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.760 out punishment that included slaps, but he frames this as 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.919 minor for the era. Now, I won't say that like 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.239 what he did was extreme for the era, but it 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.760 wasn't mild, right, And we have a lot of reports 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.000 from kids who were with him during this period of time, 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.920 and they do not report a mild experience. And I 0:17:57.920 --> 0:17:59.400 don't talk about this a lot on the show because 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:01.520 I'm not an ex or an educator. But i did 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.760 work in special let as a paraprofessional for the better 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:08.520 part of two years, and I'm unwilling to give detailed 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:10.840 stories on the air for reasons that should be obvious 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.200 and relate primarily to the privacy rights of those children. 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:17.080 But I will say that I dealt with primarily kids 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:21.000 who were frequently violent and who were about my size. Right, 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.440 These are seventeen, eighteen, nineteen twenty year olds, and many 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:26.760 of them are non The term we would use at 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.000 the time was nonverbal. And because of my size, I 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.720 worked with these kids very closely because I could take 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:34.800 a hit, and I was hit every day on that job. Right, 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.160 one of my colleagues suffered a near fatal injury a TBI. 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.600 Another had a broken jaw. So this was a I 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.879 understand sometimes you have to use restraints to protect yourself 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:48.639 and others. Right with kids who and some of the 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.359 kids were what we would call emotionally disturbed, there were 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.959 a variety of diagnoses that you had there. I'm aware 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.480 of the needs sometimes to restrain kids, and so I 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.760 want to emphasize that's not what's going on with Bruno. 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:02.280 Right. 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.919 For one thing, restraining is sometimes there's force involved in 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.439 restraining a kid. It's not violent. Your job is not 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.760 to harm them physically. Your job is to stop them 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.760 from causing harm to themselves and others, and sometimes the 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.320 only way to do that is to like physically hold 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.560 them so that they can't hit somebody or whatever. Right, 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.480 this is like a very difficult thing to do and 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:26.240 to talk about. I really don't know how to get 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.200 across like, I'm very empathetic to the people who are 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.600 good at this job, and I want to emphasize I 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.320 had no training in it. We simply don't get training 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:38.080 like that's another a major, massive problem. Or if it's 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.359 very like I had a four hour class on like 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:43.760 physical restraint and none of it, none of it was 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:44.679 functional stuff. 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.760 And there's also different types of restraints and some are 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:51.320 more harmful than others. 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.480 Yes, yes, and you know, as it was fifteen years ago, 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.760 I think it was very primitive and not we were 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:03.359 not adequately trained to do the job. I can only 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.320 imagine how bad it was in the forties. But again, 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.600 what Bruno is doing here, None of the stories that 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.000 I have from other kids are he had to make 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.000 difficult choices because a kid was violent and presented a 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.720 danger to others. They are all he was annoyed a 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.720 behavior and so he hit a child, you know, that 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:24.800 is what Bruno and I really want to emphasize. I'm 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:28.359 not naive about like the complex choices that have to 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.640 be made sometimes here, That's not what's going on with Bruno. 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.159 What he is doing to these kids a sadistic physical 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:37.280 abuse on a level that I have trouble comprehending. One 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.399 of Bruno's students is a kid named Ronald Angres. He 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.399 spent twelve years at the Orthogenic School, during which he 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.760 rarely saw his family. Bruno believed it was bad for 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.600 students to have regular contact with loved ones, and he 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.400 pushed heavily for parents to keep their kids enrolled there 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.480 for the entirety of their childhood. Right, you are abusing 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.480 your kid if you try to take them back and 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.119 raise them in your home, that's bad for them. I 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.640 have to have total control over them for the whole time. 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.000