The extreme violence and ugly emotions of many fairy tales serve to deflect what may well be going on in the child's mind anyway.

In the Winter 1991 edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of American Folklore, Alan Dundes, then a 28-year veteran in the anthropology department at the University of California, Berkeley, presented a case that Bettelheim had copied key passages from A Psychiatric Study of Myths and Fairy Tales: Their Origin, Meaning, and Usefulness (1963, 1974 rev.

[1][2][12][13] Dundes states that Bettelheim engaged in "wholesale borrowing" of both "random passages" and "key ideas," primarily from Heuscher's book, but also from other sources.

Robert A. Georges, a professor of folklore at UCLA, states "it is clear he [Bettelheim] didn't do his homework.

Jacquelyn Sanders, who knew Bettelheim and later served the same position as director of the Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago, said she did not believe many people would agree with Dundes's accusations.

"[14] And as early as 1991, the Los Angeles Times compared what Heuscher had written: "While one must never ‘explain’ the fairy tales to the child, the narrator’s understanding of their meaning is very important.

It furthers the sensitivity for selecting those stories which are most appropriate in various phases of children’s development and for stressing those themes which may be therapeutic for specific psychological difficulties.

It furthers the adult’s sensitivity to selection of those stories which are most appropriate to the child’s state of development and to the specific psychological difficulties he is confronted with at the moment [Ellipsis in Los Angeles Times article].