Allison Raskin
Appearances
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
And then we wonder like, oh, how did this guy then go on to perpetuate harm for decades?
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
I can't relate to living in one of those.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
He lived for 20 years with syphilis?
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
One of the movies that shaped me so much as a kid was this... This movie called She's Too Young on Lifetime.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
That was about a syphilis outbreak at a high school.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Look, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Not that syphilis is funny, but Lifetime's execution of the hit film She's Too Young.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
But also like it's funny because at that point you just get a shot like it's not the same stakes as it was for them you know.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
That was a really good transition.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Oh. And sort of a way to separate the weak from the chaff, like who can maintain syphilis for as long as possible.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
And it's sad that that's probably more true than we think it is.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Which is understandable given the environment he grew up in.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Hey, overnight, that is pretty risque.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Look, I'm not the hugest fan of pure psychoanalysis, but at least it doesn't keep me up at night.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Some love stories never die.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Wow. That's a real that's a real sick burn.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
And you add a bunch of money to his portfolio.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Yeah, this is people's insecurities can really end up causing a lot of harm.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
I think a lot of people don't want a kid that deviates from what they expect a kid to be. Yes. And then if that kid is different in any way, it's like, well, this isn't what I signed up for.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Someone else take care of this child.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
How old was she when she went to live with them?
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
This is reminding me of a headline I just read about how the FBI is not going to be focusing on white supremacists, but instead the BLM movement and Antifa.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
But he was smoking a cigar.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
No, I don't. I actually do have a master's in psychology, but he did not did not come up along that journey.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Going there isn't a death sentence.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
From just the general propaganda we've been spewing against that you should kill all Jews.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
That's some long-term damage.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Problematic. Internalized anti-Semitism will do a number on you.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
So it's just a history of misdiagnosing children and also a lot of racism when it comes to misdiagnosing children.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
When do people start to get skeptical about what he had said?
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
I feel like I prefer to get my examination of like fascism through sci-fi.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
It's too upsetting to watch a thing that is actually about the Holocaust.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Whereas like the lessons and the morals and like the psychological dilemmas and stuff, I'd rather like see through the frame of like aliens.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
People look for evidence to support the ideas they already believe.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
He's a very unethical, unreliable guy.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
There's like not enough other voices to be able for people to be able to recognize that as quickly as you would have hoped they would be able to.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
I am misunderstood. Yeah.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
And also – Acting like you support them is different than what's maybe going on internally.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
I wonder, though, also that he knew that people were working on the outside to get him out.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
That that probably really impacted how he viewed himself in the camp. Because he was like, no one else has this into the American government trying to get them a visa. Like, I am special. I do deserve to be freed in this way that other people don't. Because that's been sort of his MO his whole life. Yes.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
You know, to view himself as better than those that other people assimilate him or view him as being like...
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
And it allowed him to keep that belief because there was an element that he was special and different because he had these people working for him. So it wasn't completely unfounded.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
You're not forced to face the same thing. You're not forced to face the same level of despair and certain death and abandonment. You can avoid this stuff that I think Creates a – makes you different in your brain that just like fundamentally changes who you are. He was able to like avoid that.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
That's a bad cult, but I can have a good cult.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
I feel like I know where we're going and I'm terrified.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
And I think it's also I would urge people to look into RFK's wellness farms that he has been speaking about. And there is a there is a an instinct that that remains throughout history that that we could just shake certain things out of certain people. And it is incredibly harmful and false.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Yes, you can order my new rom-com novel, Save the Date, anywhere books are sold. And you can also follow my sub stack, Emotional Support Lady, for weekly writings about all things mental health. And I'm also available as a relationship coach, seeing individuals and couples.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Oh, yes. That feels like an outdated bio a little bit. Yeah. I do a lot of different stuff. These days, I primarily promote myself as a writer still and then a relationship coach and mental health advocate. So I've had two nonfiction books come out about sort of the intersection of mental health and relationships. And then I have a rom-com novel coming out in April called Save the Date.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Yes, that is also a common theme in early psychology.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
So wait. So other people thought that his mother was loving.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
Wow, he's beating out Freud.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
which is loosely based off of a multiverse version of my own broken engagement. So a fictionalized version of what could have happened afterwards.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
And he's just like, my mom's too nice.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
This guy seems great. The dad seems awesome.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
But it does like bring up this thing that I think is happening now where like these kids, kids will just be friends with kids, but then they go home and their parents tell them things. And then suddenly they're acting out and they're deciding this is someone who needs to be punched in the face.
Behind the Bastards
Part One: Bruno Bettelheim: The Worst Psycho-therapist
He learned that somewhere that day before.