Demythologizing biography of world-famous Vienna-born psychoanalyst, bestselling author and authority on troubled children.

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.

Winner of the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award "A charming book about enchantment, a profound book about fairy tales."—John Updike, The New York Times Book Review Bruno Bettelheim was one of the great child psychologists of the twentieth century and perhaps none of his books has been more influential than this revelatory study of fairy tales and their universal importance in understanding childhood development. Analyzing a wide range of traditional stories, from the tales of Sindbad to “The Three Little Pigs,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Sleeping Beauty,” Bettelheim shows how the fantastical, sometimes cruel, but always deeply significant narrative strands of the classic fairy tales can aid in our greatest human task, that of finding meaning for one’s life.

Childhood education and psychology.

Includes sections on Adolf Eichmann and Totalitarianism.

In this book, the preeminent child psychologist of our time gives us the results of his lifelong effort to determine what is most crucial in successful child-rearing. His purpose is not to give parents preset rules for raising their children, but rather to show them how to develop their own insights so that they will understand their own and their children's behavior in different situations and how to cope with it. Above all, he warns, parents must not indulge their impulse to try to create the child they would like to have, but should instead help each child fully develop into the person he or she would like to be.

Focusing on three case histories, the author attempts to reveal the problems and struggles of the autistic child.