Don’t Cite Bettelheim

I have to take issue with the story “Kids’ Stories, Grown-Up Business” (by Rachel Abramowitz, Aug. 4) referencing the much discredited Bruno Bettelheim. To pillory Bettelheim today, one would have to take a ticket and stand in line. Recently a PBS P.O.V. documentary, “Refrigerator Mothers,” brought out the psychological harm his theories inflicted on mothers of autistic children, even when neurological evidence countered his views.

Abramowitz cites his work “The Uses of Enchantment” in her story. However, the well-researched book by Richard Pollak, “The Creation of Dr. B,” reveals Bettelheim’s direct plagiarism of Julius Heuscher’s “A Psychiatric Study of Fairy Tales” as the real source of the work.

Pollak’s work also showed that Bettelheim falsified his academic credentials.

Bettelheim deserves no rehabilitation from anyone.

MARILYN TAYLOR-KREMEN

JEFFREY KREMEN

Los Angeles