“Mechanical Boy" Turned Himself Into “Machine"

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28832, 28 February 1959, Page 13

“Mechanical Boy" Turned Himself Into “Machine"

(Rec. 10 p.m.) CHICAGO, February 27. A psychiatrist today told the story of a ”mechanical boy” who converted himself into a •’machine” because a disturbed childhood had robbed him of his humanity. In an article in the magazine “Scientific American," he told how the schizophrenic child collected and carried about a conglomeration of machinery, plugged himself into imaginary electrical outlets in his delusions and fastened apparatus to his bed to “live him” while he slept The director of the Sonia Shankman orthogenic school at the University of Chicago (Professor Bruno Bettelheim) said the boy “wanted to be rid of his unbearable humanity, to become completely automatic.” “He so nearly succeeded tn attaining this goal,” Professor Bettelheim said, “that he could almost convince others, as well as himself, of his mechanical* nature.” Professor Bettelheim said the boy, who came to the orthogenic school when he was nine years old. “at last broke through his prison ... he ceased to be a mechanical boy and became a human child. This newborn child was, however, nearly 12 years old. "Joey, when we began our work with him, was a mechanical boy." he wrote. “He functioned as if by remote control, run by , machines of his own powerfully creative .fantasy.”

Professor Bettelheim said psychiatrists and attendants would watch absorbedly as Joey went about his mechanical existence. "Entering the dining room, for example, he would string an imaginary wire from his ’energy sauree’—an imaginary electric outlet—to the table.” Professor

Bettelheim said. “There ha lasullated' himself with paper napkins and finally plugged himself in. Only then eould Joey eat, for he firmly believed that the ‘current’ ran his infective apparatus." Joey's pantomine was so skilful that “one had to look twice to be sure there was neither wire nor outlet nor plug,” Professor Bettelheim said, and children and staff members "spontaneously avoided stepping on the ’wires’ for fear of interrupting what seemed the source of his very life. “Many times a day he would turn himself on and shift noisily through a sequence of higher and higher gears until he ‘exploded,’ screaming ’crash, crash* and hurling items from his ever proeen*. apparatus—radio tubes. light bulbs, even motors,” Professor Bettelheim said. If the machinery he patched together from masking tape, cardboard, wire and other materials fell from his bed, the psychiatrist added, maids carefully put it back saying: “Joey must have the carburettor ao he can breathe.” Profesaor Bettelheim aald interviews with Joey's parents indicated that the child had been rejected and "completely ignored.” He became remote and inaccessible. When he began to talk, he talked only to himself, and while still very young he became preoccupied with machinery.