Not the thing I was : thirteen years at Bruno Bettelheim's Orthogenic School / Stephen Eliot.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Eliot, Stephen.

Standardized Title:

Métamorphose. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Eliot, Stephen.

Mentally ill children--Illinois--Chicago--Biography.

Mentally ill children.

Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School.

Bettelheim, Bruno.

Child psychotherapy--Residential treatment--Case studies.

Child psychotherapy.

Psychoses in children--Treatment--Case studies.

Psychoses in children.

Child analysis--Case studies.

Child analysis.

Child psychotherapy--Residential treatment.

Illinois--Chicago.

Child psychiatry--Case studies.

Child psychiatry.

Genre:

Case studies.

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

x, 288 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First U.S. edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, [2003]

Language Note:

Translated from the French.

Summary:

They Called Him Crazy. As a Child, he probably was. At eight, the author left his family to spend thirteen years at the most famous school in the world for emotionally disturbed children. Not the Thing I Was describes life in Bruno Bettelheim's Orthogenic School in Chicago. Among autistics, schizophrenics -- some truly whacked-out kids -- and a dedicated staff, he lived in a world that didn't use drugs, had no locks on the doors, and had fine china and crystal on the dinner table. The staff believed that if you wanted to help a child, you had to understand how that child saw the world and perhaps persuade him or her that there might be other ways to interpret it that could lead to a more successful life. Bettelheim had been in the concentration camps and thought that if the Nazis could build an environment to destroy personality, he could create one to build it. He did, and in Not the Thing I Was, Eliot tells a fascinating coming-of-age story that is a cross between One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Ciderhouse Rules. It is an intimate day-by-day look at a world directed by a charismatic and controversial Viennese psychoanalyst who battled his own demons as well as those of his children. Unique as the first and only work by one of Bettelheim's patients, Not the Thing I Was takes us on a survival trip, wherein Eliot emerges successfully from this private closed environment into the outside world -- and acceptance as an undergraduate at Yale University.

Contents:

1. Setting the Stage 5

2. Some Additional Backstory 12

3. The Initial Cast 17

4. Luitgard's Class 29

5. Settling In to the Mohawks 41

6. The Stage 61

7. On Dr. B. 67

8. The Middle Period with Diana 83

9. The New, Improved Mohawks 102

10. Back to Class 122

11. Beginning Adolescence 135

12. The First Leaving of Dr. B. 158

13. Bert 165

14. Dr. B.'s Return and Life in the Adolescent Unit 185

15. Dictation 196

16. Teddy 202

17. Ready for His Close-up 212

18. Neither Fish nor Fowl 217

19. U-High 225

20. Getting Ready for College 250

21. Final Days 262.

Notes:

"First published in France under the title: La métamorphose by Bayard Press.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [273]-288).

ISBN:

0312307497

OCLC:

51022594