After his death in 1990, it finally came out that Bettelheim had misrepresented his credentials. His degree was in either art history or philosophy (aesthetics),[8][10][13] and he had only taken three introductory classes in psychology.[11] He stated that Freud had praised him as a person psychoanalysis needed to grow and develop. Bettelheim had, in fact, never met Freud.[11][14] Most of what Bettelheim knew of psychoanalysis, he seemed to have been learned as a client.[11][15]