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The history of ideas in psychoanalysis, perhaps to a much greater degree than in other fields of study, is also a history of its pioneers, its most important thinkers. Our interest in Freud is often very personal, and (from a perusal of the latest psychoanalytic publications), if anything, appears to increase with the passage of time. Much the same observation, though to a lesser degree, can be made of other figures from the early psychoanalytic movement: Jung, Reich, Rank, Ferenczi, and Abraham are of interest to us because of who they were almost as much as for what they wrote.
Rudolf Ekstein, the author of the first article, “A Reminiscence of My Friendship with Bruno Bettelheim,” knew Bettelheim as a close friend and colleague. Although Dr. Ekstein's article represents something of a departure for this journal, we have included it because it is eloquent and insightful, and reveals much of Bettelheim the person.
Bruno Bettelheim was a psychoanalyst of international stature, whose seminal contributions to the understanding and treatment of severely-disturbed children are well-represented in dozens of books and hundreds of other publications. Often, he was also a highly controversial figure, one who seemed to have little concern and less patience with “political correctness.” I didn't know Bruno Bettelheim