Bruno Bettelheim commits suicide age 86
Bettelheim is found dead on the floor of his apartment in a Maryland nursing home, a plastic bag over his head and barbiturates in his bloodstream.
Suffers a stroke
Bettelheim suffers from a stroke that leaves him unable to think and process information as he had earlier. The stroke is not particularly severe, but prevents him from writing his books and essays. He complains of residues from the stroke, including frustration about physical activity, a pervasive feeling that his body was betraying him; he walks with a slight limp and needs a cane for assistance; he is no longer able to exercise by walking long distances. The stroke also impairs his handwriting and his capacity to type, severely inhibiting the composition of his books and articles. Like many stroke victims, Bettelheim’s emotional state oscillates between depression and anguish.
Weinfeld Bettelheim dies age 72
Weinfeld “Trude” Bettelheim dies in Menlo Park, CA age 72. After forty-three years of marriage, Bruno is devastated. A brief live-in arrangement with a son ends when difficulties arise between them, and Bettelheim moves into a condominium, where he lives alone.
Becomes Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School director
Bettelheim is asked by Tyler, his protector and his mentor, to report on the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, which treats mentally retarded children. Bettelheim does not submit his report; he is reluctant to tell his mentor that he thinks the school is such a dump that it should be burned down. However, Tyler persists and offers Bettelheim the position of director of school Director.
Bruno Bettelheim born in Vienna
Bettelheim is born in Vienna of a non-religious middle-class Jewish family. As a child, Bettelheim is entrusted to a wet-nurse, but when he falls ill, his mother takes care of him. His childhood is happy at first, spent in a loving and numerous family (Bettelheim has fourteen aunts and uncles). At age four he contracts life-threatening dysentery. His is influenced by fairy tales:
The literature, which exerted a strong influence on me at the very beginning, were fairy tales, the first my mother told me, and I read itself. But I can not remember exactly whether these stories had a formative force for me. However, this must have been the case, because otherwise I would not have tried, aged over the years, to understand their psychological meaning for children. (…) How and in what way tales for me were at that time so important, I can not fathom today, but I’m pretty sure the reason being that they were telling me mainly from my mother
His father runs a wood factory, but loses a large part of its assets in the First World War, and has a stroke in 1918. He remembers his father as a weak, broken man who was no longer able to take responsibility for his family in times of change. The relationship between his mother and father deteriorates when she discovers that her husband has caught syphilis from a prostitute. His father becomes anxious and depressed, because he is suffering from many other diseases.