Not the Thing I Was : Thirteen Years at Bruno Bettelheim's Orthogenic School

by Stephen Eliot

• ISBN13: 9780312307493
• ISBN10: 0312307497
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2003-03-19
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

He was called crazy. As a child, he probably was. Sent at age eight to live among autistics and schizophrenics at Bruno Bettelheim's Orthogenic School,Stephen Eliot found him-self in a world without drugs or locks on the doors. Instead, fine china was on the table. The staff believed to help a child, one had to understand how he saw the world and persuade him that there might be more successful ways to interpret it. Bettelheim had been in the concentration camps. He figured if the Nazis could build an environment to destroy person-ality, he could build one to create it. Not the Thing I Was is a fascinating coming-of-age story that's a cross be-tween One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Cider House Rules. Upon its publication in France, L'Express hailed Eliot for his 'lucidity and devastating humor.' Marianne writes, 'The child who thought of himself as merely a pulsing brain invites us on a voyage back from the frontier of insanity and we return transformed.' A must-read for parents, teachers, therapists, and troubled adole-scents themselves, Not the Thing I Was testifies to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Author Biography

Stephen Eliot lives in New York City. He received a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Columbia University. He works as an investment banker on Wall Street, where he advises corporations and investment funds on strategy, investments, and acquisitions.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Prologue	p. 1
Setting the Stage	p. 5
Some Additional Backstory	p. 12
The Initial Cast	p. 17
Luitgard's Class	p. 29
Settling In to the Mohawks	p. 41
The Stage	p. 61
On Dr. B.	p. 67
The Middle Period with Diana	p. 83
The New, Improved Mohawks	p. 102
Back to Class	p. 122
Beginning Adolescence	p. 135
The First Leaving of Dr. B.	p. 158
Bert	p. 165
Dr. B.'s Return and Life in the Adolescent Unit	p. 185
Dictation	p. 196
Teddy	p. 202
Ready for His Close-up	p. 212
Neither Fish nor Fowl	p. 217
U-High	p. 225
Getting Ready for College	p. 250
Final Days	p. 262
Notes	p. 273
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