Bruno Bettelheim was a professor of psychology, specializing in child psychology, at the University of Chicago and is widely known for his study of fairy tales. Born in Austria, Bettelheim earned a degree in the history of art at the University of Vienna. After the German annexation of Austria in 1938, Bettelheim was shipped to concentration camps due to his Jewish heritage. After his release in 1939, Bettelheim emigrated to the United States and soon found employment at the University of Chicago, where he stayed until his retirement in 1973.
Within the field of psychology Bettelheim is a controversial figure. Highly respected during his lifetime, his legacy has since grown problematic, stemming mostly from questions over his credentials and his discredited theories on autism among children. Bettelheim served as director of the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, a treatment center for emotionally disturbed children and youths. His role at the Orthogenic School produced further controversy following his death, as former patients described Bettelheim’s behavior as tyrannical and brutal.
However, Bettelheim is also known for his highly regarded studies of fairy tales. Bettelheim’s seminal work is The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1976), in which he presents Freudian readings of European folktales while arguing for the importance of fairy tales for children’s development. While not the first to apply psychoanalysis to European fairy tales, Bettelheim’s work received several awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, and his scholarship continues to influence the field of study.
The Austrian psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim (1903–1990) in 1975. Bettelheim applied Freudian analysis to fairy tales, claiming that they were an important part of child development. Highly praised for his theories during his career at the University of Chicago, Bettelheim has since been a figure of controversy, both for his lack of academic credentials and for reports of despotic behavior. (Francois Leclaire/Sygma/Corbis)
Bettelheim asserts that fairy tales, a term he uses without distinguishing between folk fairy tales and literary fairy tales, help children’s mental development in a way that children’s books or even the film adaptations of the tales fail to do. In essence, Bettelheim argues against the restrictions that illustrations as well as a definitive script poses for the child’s imagination of the tale, and favors the oral narrator’s ability to adapt the telling specifically to each child. Furthermore, he claims that the importance of fairy tales for children’s development lies in the way in which they deal with psychological issues central to mental development, such as sexuality, independence, and sibling rivalry. Through fairy tales, Bettelheim argues, children are able to externalize and thus, hopefully, resolve these issues on an unconscious level in a healthy manner. It is important never to interfere with the child’s interpretation of the fairy tales, since only unconsciously can a solution be obtained. Bettelheim stresses that rationalizing the fairy tales ruins them. The externalizing aspects of fairy tales are at the essence of their therapeutic function, as Bettelheim sees it, because it forces children to find a solution to the inner problems on their own, in contrast to moralizing fables and myths.
Uses of Enchantment is a critique of modern parenting, which Bettelheim believed shields children from fairy tales for fear of their frightful passages and themes. Bettelheim vehemently argues against this censorship by showing how fairy tales compare to other stories and how children interpret them. The second half of the book is a more in-depth psychoanalytical reading of several of the best known Indo-European folktales: “Hansel and Gretel,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Snow White,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” “Cinderella,” and fairy tales with an animal bridegroom. Bettelheim focuses on oral fixations, oedipal impulses, and autonomy; some of his interpretations have since been criticized by other scholars, Thus, according to Bettelheim, “Hansel and Gretel” is about abandoning oral desires and the growth this ensures, “Snow White” is oedipal, and “Cinderella” is about independence and integration.
Critics, however, have contended since its publication that The Uses of Enchantment will be forever marred by Bettelheim’s misconceptions of the role of fairy tales, myths, and folklore in society, as well as his limited study of previous research on the subject and unacknowledged use of both the ideas and wording of earlier work by scholars of folklore, fairy tales, and psychoanalysis. His psychoanalytical readings of the fairy tales have also been criticized for their unscientific methods. At the same time, it remains clear that Bettelheim’s work considerably expanded the reach of psychoanalytical readings of fairy tales, especially outside of academia. As such his work stands as one of the foremost defenses of the role of fairy tales in modern society.
Oscar Winberg
See also Campbell, Joseph; European Sources; Folklore and Folktales; Storytelling
Further Reading
Bettelheim, Bruno. 1976. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. London: Thames and Hudson.
Dundes, Alan. 1991. “Bruno Bettelheim’s Uses of Enchantment and Abuses of Scholarship.” Journal of American Folklore 104 (411): 74–83.
Fisher, David James. 2008. Bettelheim: Living and Dying. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Kidd, Kenneth B. 2011. Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children’s Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Pollack, Richard. 1998. The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim. New York: Touchstone.
Zipes, Jack. 1978. “On the Use and Abuse of Folk and Fairy Tales with Children.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly: 113–122.