Truants from Life: The Rehabilitation of Emotionally Disturbed Children was published by Free Press in 1955. The book presents four extended case studies of severely disturbed children who were treated at the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago, where Bettelheim served as director from 1944 to 1973. These children — who had been diagnosed as psychotic, autistic, or untreatable — had withdrawn so completely from human contact that they could not be reached through conventional therapeutic methods.
Bettelheim’s approach was to create a total therapeutic environment: every aspect of the child’s daily life — meals, bedtime, play, school, relationships with staff — was designed as a therapeutic intervention. The goal was not to analyze the child’s pathology but to provide an environment safe enough that the child could begin, at its own pace, to take the risk of engaging with the world again. The process was measured in years, not months, and the case studies follow each child from admission through (in most cases) significant improvement.
The book established Bettelheim’s reputation as a clinician of extraordinary patience and insight. His descriptions of the children’s behavior — their rituals, their terrors, their rare moments of connection — are written with a literary skill unusual in clinical literature. The theoretical framework is Freudian, but the clinical method is pragmatic: whatever works, whatever reaches the child, is correct.
Collecting Truants from Life
First edition (Free Press, Glencoe, IL, 1955): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $30–$80
- Very good/very good: $10–$30