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As Director of the Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago, Dr. Bettelheim had occasion to observe the behavior of two girls and two boys, all of whom he would classify as schizoid, perhaps schizophrenic. One of these boys had strong feminine identification, the other felt persecuted by women and once, while running away from an angry girl, cut himself badly by putting his arm through a window pane. One of the girls suggested that the boys cut themselves once every month. These clinical observations led the author to a re-examination of the psychoanalytic theory of initiation rites, in particular the rite of circumcision. Considering the behavior of the four schizoid adolescents, Dr. Bettelheim asked himself whether the well-known initiation rituals, especially circumcision and subincision, are actually imposed on the younger generation by the elders, as described in numerous reports, or whether the envy of the opposite sex prompts the adolescents to demand such a surgical rite of transition. The author's major theme is the unconscious meaning of initiation: Are these rituals part of the fertility rites? Are they promoting or symbolizing the socially prescribed sexual role? Or do they attempt to assert that men also can bear children?
It is not easy to venture into an unknown territory. 'I am a stranger in anthropology', Dr. Bettelheim asserts (p. 263). Every