Bettelheim

Book excerpt: Wallerstein, M.D., Emeritus Professor and former Chair, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.?These sparkling personal essays on Bettelheim, a pathbreaker of modern ego psychology, who has been savagely attacked and deprecated since his death seventeen years ago, restore the man and his work in historical, clinical, and human context for the contemporary clinician and informed reader. Fisher has done a splendid job of bringing this complex, fascinating figure to life.?Peter J. Loewenberg, Ph.D., Professor of History and Political Psychology, University of California at Los Angeles, former Director of Education, New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.?David James Fisher has written a moving, personal portrait of Bruno Bettelheim as thinker, writer, and friend.