Bruno Bettelheim (German: Bruno Bettelheim, August 28, 1903, Vienna, Austria — March 13, 1990, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA) was an Austrian-born American psychologist and psychiatrist.
In 1938 and 1939 he spent time in Nazi camps — first in Dachau and then in Buchenwald. Like Viktor Frankl, while in the camp, in order to preserve his identity, Bruno Bettelheim conducted scientific work: he explored ways to turn a person into an “ideal prisoner”. Later, from his observations, the book «The Enlightened Heart» was born.
Since 1940, Bruno Bettelheim lived and worked in the United States, where he worked with children with mental trauma and disorders.
He expressed a number of erroneous ideas related to the nature of autism.