Talk:Bruno Bettelheim/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Suicide?

I was about to add this to the date of death for context and noticed that the citations have an error that appears to be cumulative, so I don't want to compound that by including another citation. As an aside to the question below, there is a trend of suicide among Holocaust survivors in their 90's. See Increased risk of attempted suicide among aging holocaust survivors. Suicide rates are higher in elderly persons than in those at other phase of the life-cycle. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16085786 MichelleInSanMarcos (talk) 20:20, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

one month after having relocated from the West Coast and close to the anniversary of the Anschluss. MichelleInSanMarcos (talk) 20:14, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

How did Bettelheim commit suicide - is this certain (as he was 86 and typical 86 year olds are not prone to kill themselves). Could we source a website?

"Dr. Bruno Bettelheim, the eminent psychoanalyst who committed suicide on Tuesday, had been demoralized by a series of setbacks in his health, family life and work, friends said yesterday."

DANIEL GOLEMAN, "FRIENDS PONDERING BETTELHEIM DEATH," New York Times, March 15, 1990

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/15/us/friends-pondering-bettelheim-death.html --Pbh444 (talk) 01:27, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Also, could a more experienced wiki user flag this article as in drastic need of peer editing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.241.41.173 (talk) 05:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

He placed a plastic bag over his head while living in a nursing home in Maryland. Prior to that he had suffered a bad stroke and could no longer walk properly, and the stroke appeared to have caused cognitive problems as well. Stroke victims unfortunately do often kill themselves, regardless of age. --Trippz (talk) 14:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I read the same thing as to the way Dr. Bettelheim died. I wonder if it wasn't an assisted suicide. It is impossible to not pull a plastic bag from one's head when suffocating. Wasn't it reported that he had taken sedatives also? This makes the idea of him doing this without assistance less likely. It may have been that he took sedatives and that someone, at his request, put the bag over his head.

In any case it was not much different than Dr. Freud's assisted suicide and in the article on Freud, suicide is not listed as the cause of death and other people who assisted in their own death or who committed suicide unassisted and were not under the pain of old age and depression, do not have suicide listed under cause of death in the heading: Kurt Kobain, Freddy Prinze, George Eastman, Ernest Hemmingway, Richard Jeni, Virginia Wolf ... Suicide is not listed in the heading of any of these people whose articles were written by people with some respect for their subject. Their suicides were discussed but listing suicide in the headings of the articles of some people and not others is not right. Someone reading an article with an ugly picture and suicide mentioned immediately will naturally tend to not be open to positive aspects of the article.

I agree , but I would also say that I don't think we should put the method of suicide in the article as it is sensationalist Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 15:44, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

References

Reverting to avoid WP:LONGQUOTE and WP:QUOTEFARM

I spent a great deal of time summarizing and organizing the Abusive treatment of students section because it relied too heavily on quotes, going against the principles of WP:QUOTEFARM and WP:LONGQUOTE. This work has been functionally reverted by User:FriendlyRiverOtter to re-include long passages of quotes that add nothing to the article and go against WP:BECONCISE. More quotes from students, etc... do not add any additional information to this article. Therefore, I have reverted it back to the June 3, 2019 page. Whenelvisdied (talk) 23:35, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

From the top of the page where both WP:LONGQUOTE and WP:QUOTEFARM are discussed: " . . . has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints." So, it's a thoughtful essay, nothing more, nothing less.

And I kept a goodly amount of your work. You described the Alida Jatich quotes as "evocative," and I kept that. You wrote, "some disagreement as to whether Bettelheim's use of corporal punishment rose to the level of abuse or was in keeping with the standards of his time." I rewrote "whether it was out-of-step," but largely kept the same quote and same idea. And I kept your quote about what inspired Richard Pollak to write his biography.

I understand that you've put a lot of time into this article, and I trust that you understand I have as well.

It seems we clearly disagree on how much of the quotes from students to use. From my perspective, you rather want us to use Alida Jatich as a representative and leave it at that. And even though she was one of the first or maybe flatly the first former student to go public and deserves a great deal of credit for that, I think other former students have valuable things to say as well. And including some of this additional material adds richness and meaning to our article.

As always, I'm willing to take a fresh look. In fact, one of the things which is so good about Wikipedia and from which I learn so much from, is the very fact that people can look at the same information and come to pretty different conclusions. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 23:36, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughtful response. As should be obvious, my general sentiment is in line with WP:QUOTEFARM and WP:LONGQUOTE, namely that an exemplary and rich article that complies with wikipedia's standards can be written without quotes of any kind. I understand that these guidelines are not policy, but to my mind extensive quoting gets in the way of clear, concise writing, and veers away from WP:ENC.

I also admit a certain discomfort with extensive quoting in a Controversies section. I think it nudges against violating WP:NPOV to have an article whose overall text is written in a neutral tone, while the Controversies section is predominantly the targeted words of other people who are not neutral towards the subject.

What I tried to do in my edit was to choose a single quote for each Controversy sub-section on which I worked, contextualize it with NPOV language, and then put the other quotes in footnotes. I chose the Jatich quote not because I have any fealty to her position or to her personally, but because it seemed to best exemplify the criticisms presented against Bettelehim. This left a quote on the page while not (to my mind) overburdening the text with extensive quotes. I don't have an opinion about which quote criticizing Bettelheim should be on the page, but I think one or two that provide some color should be enough to fill out the section, with the other quotes listed as footnotes. Whenelvisdied (talk) 17:59, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Is it okay to use sources with a viewpoint as long as we identify them as such?

In The Footsteps Of Sir Cyril Burt And Bruno Bettleheim, Discovery Institute, Kathryn Lindskoog, June 1, 1997.

' . . . It turns out that the two most famous, influential, and powerful child psychologists of the twentieth century were complete frauds. . . '

' . . . In Betrayers of the Truth Broad and Wade point out that science is in one sense a celebrity system in which the scientific elite control the allocation of rewards. The elite receive undue prominence, and their work is usually immune to scrutiny. . . '

' . . . Professors Anne and Alan Clarke told Newsweek "People had grave doubts long ago, but Burt was a fearsome figure. He was an autocrat of the old school, wrapped in a most charming style." . . . '

' . . . Bettelheim was a plagiarist and, worse yet, no psychiatrist. He was an imposter. . . '

This pertinent material on the subject of how Bettelheim was able to pull it off for so long.FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 00:51, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

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How the Discover Institute describes itself:

https://discovery.org/about
' . . . the role that science and technology play in our culture and how they can advance free markets, illuminate public policy and support the theistic foundations of the West. . . '

https://discovery.org/about/mission
' . . . Conceived by the ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Christians, and elaborated in the American Founding, Western culture has encouraged creativity, enabled discovery and upheld the uniqueness and dignity of human beings. Linking religious, political, and economic liberty, the Judeo-Christian culture has established the rule of law, codified respect for human rights and conceived constitutional democracy. . . '

I'm going to summarize this as: politically conservative from Judeo-Christian perspective. If you'd like to summarize it differently, please, be my guest. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 01:14, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd be way more comfortable if you were to summarize that as Eurocentric at the least and at worst strongly rooted in a creepy Western superiority attitude. I think that worldview is a more useful note than where on the political spectrum it falls. Jasphetamine (talk) 01:23, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Why would anyone add anything from Discovery.com? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:4E02:9580:8820:FCAF:4122:53D4 (talk) 18:36, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

May 2019 RfC about evenly split on "child psychologist" or not

Should our lead sentence describe Bettelheim as a "child psychologist"?

And from early to mid-May, there were 6 "Yes" votes and 5 "No" votes. And in early June 2019, a fellow Wikipedian voted "Weak yes." And some of the Yes votes were in favor of adding a qualifier to psychologist. So, on May 11, 2019, I myself added "self-professed" as a qualifier. And from then till the present, with now three breaks, we have continued to use a qualifier, although "self-proclaimed," which we have also used, probably better summarizes Bettelheim's career in a nutshell.

I say, let's generally stand pat, pending further major discussion with either another RfC or not. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 00:23, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

"self-proclaimed psychologist" is a good centrist position

I mean, in resolving the RfC, we had:

The 1st Yes suggested the qualifiers "Self-styled" or "presumed."

The 3rd Yes suggested "self-titled", "self-professed", or "imposter."

The 5th Yes said, "Some phrase must be used prior to the term."

And the 7th Yes voted "Weak yes" in boldface.

I'm not saying all 5 No votes would be happy with [qualifier] psychologist, but I think they'll be happier. And a couple of the Yes votes said child psychologist is not necessary. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 23:25, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

FriendlyRiverOtter, if Bettelheim falsely claimed to be a psychologist, and you can support that with a valid citation, then the article can certainly note that Bettelheim falsely claimed to be a psychologist. There is no need for the article to use language such as "self-proclaimed psychologist", which is simply confusing, because it could be taken by naive readers to imply that he was a psychologist because he proclaimed himself one. In reality a man does not become a psychologist by proclaiming himself such. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 23:40, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Even in the face of good arguments, and yours is certainly a good, logical argument, we can't run counter to the most recent RfC, which I think you and I both participated in.

Now, there could be edge cases. For example, someone could claim to be a medical doctor with some medical knowledge, travel between countries and/or wartime, hard to check credentials, and the person might perform sub-par at the job, but be good at self promotion. And that's basically Bettelheim's career in the field of child psychology. And yes, there are a number of references, such as:

Bruno Bettelheim: a cautionary life, Baltimore Sun, Paul McHugh, Jan. 19, 1997.

" . . glibness with Freudian theory . . "

And apparently, that modest amount of knowledge was enough for Bettelheim to leverage.

But all the same, describing Bettelheim as a child psychologist, or simply 'psychologist,' with a qualifier, is the closest we currently have to a consensus (or, at least a centrist position and a clear majority). And Freeknowledgecreator, I'd feel best of all if you were the one to change it back . . . until we do a future RfC of course. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 17:27, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

There is no reason for the article to use language that is ambiguous or open to misunderstanding when it can instead use language that is not ambiguous or open to misunderstanding. Thus far, I see only you objecting to the removal of the ambiguous "self-proclaimed psychologist" language. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 23:09, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

It's true that almost all the people who sincerely participated have not stayed active on this page, but I still think we should respect their work. And "public intellectual" is not exactly the height of clear, specific communication. "Author" is pretty vague, too.

It looks like we're going to need another RfC.

For the record, the 4th and 6th persons who voted yes said we didn't need to use child psychologist, but that simply psychologist would be okay. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 01:30, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

RfC on lead sentence

There is a clear consensus that the lead sentence should not describe Bettelheim as a "self-proclaimed psychologist" because that would be a violation of the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy.

Cunard (talk) 00:57, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should our lead sentence describe Bettelheim as a "self-proclaimed psychologist"? 00:29, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• FriendlyRiverOtto, with respect, this request for comment is a stupid waste of time. No, the article should not describe Bettelheim as a "self-proclaimed psychologist", because there is no such thing as a "self-proclaimed psychologist". There are only people who falsely claim to be psychologists. If the information can be properly cited, the article should simply note that Betellheim falsely claimed to be a psychologist. Please do not place worthless requests for comment. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 00:33, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

• Yes. This easily can be part of a good, descriptive, above-average lead sentence. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 18:20, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

• No. I am sympathetic to FriendlyRiverOtter's (years-long) drum-beating on this, but I think in the interests of the goals of the MOS:LEAD having a clear, accessible style with a Neutral Point of View outweigh attempts to parse Bettelheim's biographical complexity in the first sentence. MOS:ROLEBIO indicates that the first sentence of a biographical page should "emphasize what made the person notable." Subsequent revelations about his work, credentials, or behavior notwithstanding, Bettelheim rises to the level of notability because of his lifelong work in the field of psychology. The Lead section indicates that he was controversial and lists some reasons why, which interested readers can follow up on in the subsequent sections. Having said all of that, I could live with the current wording of "Public Intellectual and author" but would also be fine calling him a psychologist. Whenelvisdied (talk) 15:57, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Whenelvisdied: Yes, I've worked on the Bettelheim article off and on for about three-and-a-half years now, and feel I've made some definite improvements. And you've done quite a bit of work over the last year, including some definite improvements and thank you. Sometimes it is kind of fun diving into a historic topic with perhaps little current application, maybe you feel the same as well. And the areas in which we disagree, hey, that's what makes Wikipedia fun, right? FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

• No. As I said in the previous RfC, "self-proclaimed' as well as being unclear, seems like an attempt to discredit him in the first few words. A sentence or two is all that one is asked to read before discovering that though influential in his lifetime, he has been largely discredited since.Pincrete (talk) 15:38, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment. Like Whenelvisdied, I am fine calling the subject a psychologist or a psychoanalyst. For me, it is not Wikipedia or an editor’s job to evaluate and analyze the validity and meaning of something or a term on his own. Let the platform reflect what has been written by authoritative sources. If other encyclopedic sources call Bettelheim a psychologist, then he should be called one. The sources also reflect an international reputation, indicating notability of his work and practice. The lede also referred to a “clinical career” - so what is this referring to? He was a professor of psychology for decades and practiced child psychology. No one questioned his qualifications while he was alive and able to defend himself. If he plagiarized, doctored his credentials or was discredited after his death, then mention them in the lede and discussed them in the body with corresponding evidence. Darwin Naz (talk) 03:00, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
• No I agree with several comments above, it appears that the proposed descriptor in first sentence runs afoul of NPOV and NOR. He was a professor, author, school director, public intellectual, if more is needed in the first sentence one can say his work was in the fields of, or dealt with, psychology or psychoanalysis, and/or name the Orthogenic School. The controversies about his work and life should be later, but even then one can't lose sight that at the time of his career lay analysis was in issue, as was nature vs nurture, and it can't all be about controversy either, at least without neutrally explaining what his ideas were. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:32, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
• No Seems to violate neutral points of view. Regardless of whether he was right or wrong, he was a psychologist. ~ HAL333 02:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

• No. The starting line should be defining the topic. Starting with a judgemental statement, especially when phrased as fact, just gives the appearance that the article is blatently biased and content will be aiming to support that rather than to be neutral and respect NPOV. Save the mention of controversies or general views to later, and of conclusions to the end of that line. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:23, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
• No reading through the talk page and the relevant portions of the article I don't think it is a particularily usefull item for readers.^Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 19:45, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I think we may be close to achieving WP:CONSENSUS. Bettelheim can be described in the first sentence of the Lead as a "psychologist" with no prior adjective (in addition to what is there now--public intellectual, etc...). This seems to conform with the responses so far. Mention of his falsified credentials now appears in the sixth sentence of the lead and is elaborately discussed in the MOS:BODY, which should satisfy @ FriendlyRiverOtter's concerns. I'd like to move that we change the lead and WP:RFCEND. Whenelvisdied (talk) 20:05, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

@Whenelvisdied:Well . . . I'd be a little bit careful coming up with a centrist position. From my experience back in May 2019, I thought "[qualifier] psychologist" was the clear and obvious centrist position, but umm . . apparently not! So, by all means, make a stab at it, make your very best attempt, and I personally don't have a problem with the March 16th edit adding "psychologist" for it clearly is a right-now, majority viewpoint. I'd only suggest, stay a little bit light on your toes. For example, Jasphetamine from below might come up with sometime you like.

Or, Pincrete, the second No vote from above, but who also said, "A sentence or two is all that one is asked to read before discovering that though influential in his lifetime, he has been largely discredited since." I don't know if Pincrete is going to be satisfied with six sentences deep. And that one-two sequence of: "influential . . largely discredit since" which he or she recommends, somehow that is surprisingly difficult to do well and to do short. [and Bettelheim may at times been a mini-hit with the general public; but I don't know if he was ever that influential with professionals who just didn't seem to take him all that seriously]

And I'd prefer we call it centrist position or majority position. And for the record, no, I myself am not satisfied with six sentences deep. And I'd request that we keep this RfC open a little bit longer. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 19:49, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• No. I think the descriptive phrase this article is searching for is "popular psychologist". This would satisfy the cultural standards of the 1940's as well as now. The salient points are as follows:

Licensure requirements for "psychologists" were not generally accepted until the 1980s, having only been proposed in 1949, several years after Bettelheim began publishing. His mass media publishing made him "popular", and his subject matter was psychology. Were European Dipl requirements exactly equivalent to US PhD at the time, in Psychology, when the field was in flux, during the heightened pre-war atmosphere? Wasn't living thru it a psychological learning experience of itself?

Even now, four US states do not require the Psychology PhD for licensure.

The article describes him as a "...brilliant...", "...salesman...", i.e., an applied psychologist. Combine that with his acceptance as a an applied psychologist by the Orthogenic School, as a professor by Rockford College, the University of Chicago and Stanford, by the educator Ralph Tyler, the first director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He was popularly accepted by them as a psychologist. Sure, standards in psychology have changed, but even now, how many practicing popular psychologists do we know to have advanced degrees, practices, or licensure?

He was a popular psychologist of the time, now accused of behavior and attitudes not enlightened. Scientific falsification of data simply means an unethical PSYCHOLOGIST. Still, a published "popular psychologist."SalineBrain (talk) 06:55, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Freeknowledgecreator I don't understand your reasoning, can you explain it a little better. Why can there be someone who falsely claimed to be a psychologist but not a self-proclaimed psychologist? —DIYeditor (talk) 04:05, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Because people do not become psychologists by proclaiming themselves to be psychologists. "Self-proclaimed psychologist" is a stupid expression because it implies that the person is a psychologist when they are not. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 05:21, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

To me it doesn't imply anything other than that this person presented themselves as a psychologist... —DIYeditor (talk) 05:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Whatever it may be intended to mean, "self-proclaimed psychologist" logically implies that a person is a kind of psychologist. Hence it is stupid and unacceptable. I've already patiently pointed out that there is no need to use such ridiculous language. The accurate way of putting it is to say that someone falsely claims to be a psychologist. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 05:29, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with what you say it logically implies. I would need some clear grammatical arguments for that because that's not how I read it. Ignoring that, do we have the sources to say something like that he was a "fraudulent psychologist"? —DIYeditor (talk) 05:32, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

It logically implies that because "self-proclaimed" is a modifier of "psychologist". It doesn't help the article if cannot even use English correctly. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 05:33, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

That's not how adjectives work to my understanding. Please present a clear argument. —DIYeditor (talk) 05:42, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I have presented a clear argument. Describing a man as a "Self-proclaimed psychologist" logically implies that he is a psychologist, because a "self-proclaimed psychologist" is logically a kind of psychologist. If that doesn't correspond to your understanding then your "understanding", which I note that you don't attempt to explain, is wrong. If you can't explain how you think adjectives do work then you're the one who isn't presenting a clear argument. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 05:55, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

A "false prophet" is not in fact a prophet, or is a very peculiar kind of prophet. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:03, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

That is an inaccurate comparison that shows you have not understood the problem. "Self-proclaimed" does not mean the same thing as "false". Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 06:04, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

So, "false psychologist" would be okay with you? How about "pretend psychologist"? Or just impostor"? --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

I am not aware of any scholarly source that uses the term "false psychologist". It seems a peculiar term to use, and I cannot imagine any possible value it might have. It is not an improvement over "self-proclaimed psychologist", a preposterous expression. I have already noted that the article should simply state that Bettelheim falsely claimed to be a psychologist. There is no need to use peculiar, made-up terms. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 09:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Freeknowledgecreator you are struggling with the nuances that arise from connotation interacting with denotation when adjectives and adverbs are used primarily to convey subtext. Self-proclaimed has a generally negative connotation, and is often used as shorthand for "fraudulent." While the logic flow would seem to require a self-proclaimed psychologist to necessarily be a psychologist, the modifier "self-proclaimed" is acting upon the connotation and functioning as shorthand for "In spite of lacking credentials, scientific rigor, and professional recognition, the field of relevance to this individual is psychology." Thus the modifier is acting specifically to signal to the reader that in this case, the logic flow does not require he be the thing he is described as. English isn't C++, and sometimes breaking the rules is the most elegant solution. Jasphetamine (talk) 02:21, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, but that pretentious, semi-coherent babble isn't going to alter the obvious point that a "self-proclaimed psychologist" is logically a kind of psychologist. It's a stupid expression that Wikipedia should not use. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 06:02, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: I myself would be fine with impostor psychologist, but I strongly suspect this is not going to get majority support. And actually, this is exactly why I enjoy Wikipedia and find it worthwhile -- to get different viewpoints.

Look, humans do things by first impression and gut reaction, and that's really more of a strength than a weakness. But in either case, it's the way people act and something we just have to accept.

And, yes, of course, it certainly appears to me as though people aren't looking at the references, hardly at all. It would be as if we were to describe Jimmy "Baby Face" Nelson as a "banking entrepreneur" and then say, well, it's NPOV, you know. Or more realistically, we'd say, well, "everyone knows" he's a bank robber. Except "everyone knows" is not a good argument. We should go with what our references say, no more, no less.

Or another example, with the 2017 Houston Astros, the existence of a major cheating scandal is generally known and accepted. It's simply a question of how to cover it in a measured way. With Bettelheim, well, it's not generally known about at all. It's as if people are trying to do two steps at once, find out what's going on and how to cover it.

It does make me wonder how often we make this mistake of (?) over-politeness, of being tame and "plain vanilla" as it were. Heck, Bettelheim departed this earth 30 years ago. Where are we making this mistake where it really counts? FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 22:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Agreed FriendlyRiverOtter. There's an astonishing amount of words spent above debating degrees of obfuscation, makes my head spin. I'm wondering if there's a source that calls him "discredited" "amateur" or "unqualified" or something like that. It gets to the point and is grammatically sound -- The guy was a joke. Jasphetamine (talk) 01:46, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Jasphetamine Yes, there is. There's an article in UK's The Independent saying no qualifications. Plus, the sources below. And you're very straightforward question gets me thinking that I may have focused too much on the second-order questions of how and why, and how he was able to get away with it.

There's also the Peter Kramer article (second one below), who in '97 was a guy in the field. And it's fairly devastating, and we ought not water it down.FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 22:22, 14

FriendlyRiverOtter I think that your assessment of what’s made this question seem so complex to answer is correct. It seems to happen often on Wikipedia, you’ll probably start seeing it everywhere now —- the disagreement over how to phrase things wanders from “Can we justify it with sources?” to “can we justify it with logical argument and philosophy?” If we can source him being called something, as you mentioned, we pick the one best supported, shove the adjective in, cite it, and move on to the next issue. :) Jasphetamine (talk) 00:58, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

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Turbulent dreams of a damaged saint, The Independent [UK], Nicholas Tucker (review of Bruno Bettelheim: A Life and a Legacy by Nina Sutton), 8 December 1995:

"despite claims to the contrary, possessed no psychology qualifications of any sort."

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THE BATTLE OVER BETTELHEIM, Weekly Standard, Peter D. Kramer, April 7, 1997.

"The Ford Foundation was willing to underwrite innovative treatments for autistic children, so Bettelheim labeled his children autistic. Few actually met the definition of the newly minted syndrome."

At the time of this article, Peter D. Kramer was clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University. I'd say, he's making a serious charge which we should neither dismiss nor water down. We certainly can compare it to other references and other sources, and those are similar. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 22:41, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

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The Confidence Man : (A review of . . ) THE CREATION OF DR. B.: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim. By Richard Pollak. Simon & Schuster: 478 pp., $27.50, published in Los Angeles Times, Howard Gardner (professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education), Jan. 19, 1997:

" . . Bettelheim led a complex life, which he seemed incapable of describing accurately. He lied about his family background, his education, his love life, his credentials, his experiences in the concentration camp. . "

And with Professor Gardner reviewing Richard Pollak's book, I'd say this is pretty much exactly the type of secondary source we are looking for. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 18:42, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

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Solving The Puzzle That Was Bruno Bettelheim, Chicago Tribune, Ron Grossman, Nov. 11, 1990:

" . . Sanders and Cohler, his successors at the Orthogenic School, got the impression from Bettelheim that his doctoral dissertation was in art history. In some of his writings, Bettelheim implies that he wrote a disseration on the philosophy of education. Ralph Tyler, who first brought Bettelheim to the University of Chicago, says he assumed Bettelheim had two Ph.D.s: one in art history, another in psychology. Yet the university`s official biographical sketch credits Bettelheim with only one Ph.D., and doesn`t specify a field. . "

Interesting, as if Bettelheim allowed different people to believe different things. And as if the University of Chicago didn't want to look too deeply into the matter. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 19:12, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

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Bettelheim Accused Of Plagiarizing Book, Chicago Tribune, Sharman Stein, February 7, 1991:

' . . Dundes, the author of more than 25 books, many of which are about fairy tales and myths, said Bettelheim was guilty "not just . . . of occasional borrowings of random passages, but a wholesale borrowing of key ideas." . . '

' . . "Surely, the polite thing is to quote" the earlier author, Heuscher said. "But Bruno Bettelheim is brilliant. He has read many things, and probably some of the ideas he didn`t know for sure whether he was thinking them himself, or whether he took it. He may have copied a few things, but it really doesn`t bother me." . . '

It shows goodness of heart for the previous author Julius Heuscher to basically say, even if Bettelheim did plagiarize from me, I don't consider it a big deal. (And in Feb. '91, Bettelheim had been dead for less than a year, making politeness and decency all the more important.) All the same, in a serious biographical article, like our Wiki article here, we've got to cover it, and we do. We cover supported charges of plagiarism in a section entitled Plagiarism in Bettelheim's Uses of Enchantment. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 20:16, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

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@DIYeditor:, regarding whether we can say Bettelheim was a "fraudulent psychologist"? Well, the above Los Angeles Times reference says he lied about his credentials, and the above Chicago Tribune article by Ron Grossman says he allowed different people (such as his professional colleagues!) to believe different things about his background and credentials, things which weren't true. Even so, I'd personally shy away from using "fraudulent," although I'm not sure I could really justify that hesitancy on my part. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 00:39, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• Give me a few dys to reacquaint myself with the subject and I'll be glad to weigh in. ^Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 05:08, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

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NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, Steve Silberman, New York, NY: Avery (an imprint of Penguin), 2015, Ch. 5 "The Invention of Toxic Parenting," page 203:

" . . . His doctorate in art theory became a doctorate in psychology—or two or three degrees in various subjects, all summa cum laude. Patsy had been his special project; over the years, she would morph into several autistic children . . . "

Okay, so he's not a complete country rube. Bettelheim does have a degree in art theory. Not exactly the same thing as psychology. But the guy does seem good at winging it, doesn't he? FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 22:05, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

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But, regarding the below, is all we're doing just copying other encyclopedias ? ? FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 19:12, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

These are valid sources and these publications have editors in place to check their published information. It would also help to note how these sources present their content, a format that sticks to the facts, is objective and does not resort to any editorializing or innuendo. If you copy and paste their information, then there goes your problem. And we are not here to investigate issues or delve deeper into things and outline points to present an argument. Darwin Naz (talk) 23:09, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Darwin Naz: I don't want us to merely copy and paste from other encyclopedias. Granted their editors are just as smart, talented, and dedicated as we are, but we might have a more experienced team, a larger team which provides more sets of eyes?--and so, let's roll with it. As long as we have the energy, let's summarize directly from a range of good references, such as the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Steve Silberman's book, all from above. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 18:50, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

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As it has always been, the problem remains Undue Weight. Placing the controversy about Bettelheim's credentials in the first sentence is giving Undue Weight to one aspect of his life and career. The First Sentence of a biography should introduce Bettelheim and "emphasize what made the person notable." Without that weight of his broad career, we wouldn't be having an argument about how to characterize him in the first place.

To take a counter-hypothetical--Let's say that Bettelheim had been a small-town accountant who was undistinguished during his lifetime. Let's also say "Bruno Bettelheim, CPA" had done what the real Bettelheim did-- mis-represented his credentials, plagiarized the accounting-work of others, and been abusive to his clients. Finally, let's imagine that, like the real Bettelhim, after his death there were numerous reliable newspaper accounts and books written about these controversial things he had done. (So the only real difference is the relative scale of impact of Bruno Bettelhim, psychologist, and Bruno Bettelheim, small town CPA.)

Given this hypothetical, we would be following Wikipedia policy to include the controversy in the first sentence, as his notability would arise from said controversy. Conversely, the reason Bettelheim arose to notability, such that he was granted a wikipedia page in the first place, was his work in psychology. This is what differentiates him from FriendlyRiverOtter's previous analogies to Baby Face Nelson and Frank Abagnale--their notability is as con-artists and criminals, while Bettelheim's notability arises from his career and public impact in psychology, not the subsequent evaluation and critical commentary on that career.

I think he should be described as a "author, scholar, and public intellectual who worked in the field of psychology" or something similar. I think this gives Due Weight to the fact that his credentials are in psychology are at best murky while still indicating that what makes him notable is his career in the field. Whenelvisdied (talk) 17:58, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

@Whenelvisdied: There is a potential paradox. For as the importance of what an imposter did rises, the place where we give our reader the "real poop," as it were, is actually going to fall?

And remember, the "Catch Me If You Can" guy, Frank Abagnale, posed as a doctor for a while. In the book, there's one part in which he doesn't know what a blue baby is and looks it up in a pocket medical dictionary (!) (!). Hopefully in this case, he was not directly involved in patient care and was more of a bystander. But if he did pose as a doctor for 5 years, 6 years, 7 years, is there a point at which our opening paragraph only describes him as a doctor, even if he caused real patient harm, and then only in the third paragraph, do we finally get around to telling our reader, Hey, umm, by the way, no credentials whatsoever? (Bettelheim's case is more complicated since he did have one PhD in either art or philosophy; sources vary)

And then there are weird questions about time, as if we are feeling the pull of some time-oriented version of a prime directive, for are we going to endeavor to have different articles which freeze a 1940s, or a 1980s, or an 1870 perspective? No, I say we primarily go with the best current information we have, I mean, what else can we do? And yes, we do say how a person, or event, or idea was perceived back then, to the extent we have references addressing this point.

And as people have said previously, I generally agree that the term 'psychologist' was a looser standard back in the 1940s, but not so loose that fellow professions of the time would accept someone with misrepresented credentials! FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 19:57, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Psychology is a young discipline. There was a time (and it was not that too far back) when its practice (including psychiatry) was considered a pseudo-medicine or quackery. Unlike other scientific disciplines, there is still a great deal of theorizing and experiments. Equating one allegedly posing as a psychologist with a person posing as a surgeon or doctor is a false equivalence. This also means that a degree in psychology obtained during Bettelheim's time does not mean much today because several theories learned in school back then were probably disproven or modified. If I am not mistaken, there was a dearth of literature on Freudian thought before Bettelheim, whose works contributed to the corpus significantly. Darwin Naz (talk) 23:54, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Darwin Naz: I agree most of the rest medical practice is much more heavily credentialed, no question about it.

However, as far as writers in the Freudian tradition, there are a ton of them. Carl Jung and Erik Erickson are two I’m familiar with, but there are a bunch more.

Bettelheim is primarily a bit player. He mainly seconded Leo Kanner’s idea in the newly discovered field of autism, to the effect that this condition was caused by bad mothering, with “refrigerator mother” becoming the popular, shorthand phrase although Kanner himself didn’t quite say this. And frankly, the fact that this was taken so seriously for so long shows just how big a heyday ‘Freudian’ thought and ‘psychoanalytic’ theory had (and might indirectly hint at how much damage was potentially done to autistic persons and their families).

Bettelheim wrote two books which were either bestsellers or approached that status: The Empty Fortress in the 1960s about autism, and The Uses of Enchantment in the 1970s about fairy tales within the framework of Freudian theory. He wrote other books, but those were his two “big” ones. He sold to the general public. I don’t think he was even that well accepted by legitimate professionals working in the field, to his disappointment. And he certainly wasn’t one of the giants of the field. Thank goodness!, for that would have been really embarrassing to the field.

And I don’t want to put that much weight on the MD analogy, or any other analogy. Basically, we have three or more references that Bettelheim misrepresented credentials (or his lack thereof!), engaged in plagiarism, etc. We should go with these references, or else Wikipedia erodes a little bit of credibility. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 21:15, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@FriendlyRiverOtter, see above, as I discussed why Frank Abagnale isn't a good comparison to Bettelheim--his notability comes from being a con-artist, not a doctor, and he wouldn't have a Wikipedia page without notability. But leaving that aside, I have found a page that is a good comparison. Cyril Burt, like Bettelheim, was not trained in his area of notability. He is famous for his work on the Heritability of IQ, but he trained in Classics. Like Bettelheim, he has also become embroiled in academic controversy. He appears to have falsified his primary area of study, which was only discovered after his death by subsequent researchers and reports from contemporaries. Nevertheless, the first sentence of his lead follows Wikipedia policy (particularly MOS:ROLEBIO) and lists him as "an English Educational psychologist and geneticist who also made contributions to statistics." Later in the lead his controversy is mentioned and the remainder of the article discusses it at great length. He is not described as "false", "self-identified" or any other descriptor despite not having academic training in his field and having falsified his research.

This, and everyone else's comments leads me to the conclusion that it would be following WP:PG to describe Bettelheim as a psychologist in the first sentence of the lead, and include reference to his various controversies at the end of the lead. Whenelvisdied (talk) 13:52, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Whenelvisdied:, alright, so Cyril Burt “falsified his primary area of study.” To me, it’s stunning. And it reflects poorly on Wikipedia. Not that there’s controversy in the real world, for of course there is, but that we as a group are so incapable of dealing with it.

And so, the first sentence of that article reads: ”Sir Cyril Lodowic Burt, FBA (3 March 1883 – 10 October 1971) was an English educational psychologist and geneticist who also made contributions to statistics.” And thus, our Wiki reader who only reads that, maybe because all they need is to place the guy in his field, but if they later come back and read more, they might decide we didn’t do a very good job. And they’d be right.

We seem to have drifted to this group norm of papering over controversy and worrying about surface neutrality, instead of just presenting controversy as evenly and as plainly as anything else. We can do better.

And if we’re going to do a deep dive and get in a scripture-quoting contest about notability, I think there are plenty of other policies which talk about the importance of accuracy. And at the end of the day, I think accuracy trumps. And I strongly suspect you agree with that. Or else, our Wikipedia again loses just a little bit of credibility. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 16:23, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that we have a disagreement over how to apply WP:POLICY on this issue. Given the WP:CONSENSUS suggested by those who commented, I am going to added psychologist to the MOS:FIRST. This keeps reference to Bettelheim's misdeeds squarely in the WP:LEAD, and does nothing to affect the extensive detail of his behaviors in the article itself, for which we have you to thank. Whenelvisdied (talk) 18:55, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

May 2019's RfC was pretty different

May 2019 RfC

The question was: Should our lead sentence describe Bettelheim as a "child psychologist"?

There were 7 Yes's and 5 No's. However, 3 of the Yes's spoke in favor of some kind of qualifier on psychologist or child psychologist. To me, this made "[qualifier] child psychologist" the obvious centrist position.

But . . .

People kick at the particular qualifier. People seem to have a good nose for the barest whiff of connotation and trickiness. Good for us, for I don't want to be tricky either. I want to be very straightforward.

Maybe a two-part lead sentence: . . . in the public eye as a psychologist during his life, exposed for misrepresented credentials and plagiarism after his death . . .

Or, just the much more straightforward "imposter psychologist" and we do have the references. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 22:17, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Other encyclopedias

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

References

How the situation was able to go on for so long

Hi FriendlyRiverOtter , glad to see you're back working on this. I am removing the section you added entitled "how the situation was able to go on for so long" for two reasons. First, it utilizes sources already cited elsewhere, and adding only quotes and anecdotes and not new information. Secondly, and more directly, the previous section on allegations of abuse makes clear that there was not a uniform consensus by Bettelheim's students that he was abusive. Therefore, there is no "situation", or at least not an unequivocal one that deserves its own scrutiny in a section, and all this does is add Undue Weight regarding Bettelheim to this page. Whenelvisdied (talk) 13:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi Whenelvisdied , good to hear from you, too. And the fact that we have differing views is what makes it so interesting, right?

Okay, regarding balanced weight and avoiding undue weight, the intro to Bettelheim should probably only be two or three sentences. I mean, he's a minor historical figure after all. But since he's a complicated figure, I think it's probably okay for the rest of the article to be pretty long and to include a number of different sections.

Or, I guess we can go the other way. Our first sentence currently states " . . scholar, public intellectual and author . . " Maybe we could add "towering giant" as well? ;) [just kidding]

I still don't get it. People being imposters for marriage and money and to steal money from their new "spouse" is a known phenomenon. Pirates exist in the world. We have three sources -- we have more than three -- saying Bettelheim used either an art history or philosophy (aesthetics) PhD, the fact of wartime disruption, and his Austrian accent to leverage himself into a psychology career. And yet, we seem somehow unable to say this in a confident and forthright manner.

Whenelvisdied, it's been a long time. I can't remember whether you were one of the people. . Actually, I think you were one of the moderates. But a lot of people seemed to take the view that we should take articles from the New York Times and esp. the Chicago Tribune the year the scandal broke and somehow overrule them? ! When these are valid secondary sources, meaning, in theory they're exactly what we want.

Too much focus on surface neutrality. We can and should do better. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 19:55, 22 September 2021 (UTC)