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It is impossible, in the wake of the 20th century catastrophe constituted by the concentration camps, to talk of destruction without including the form: being destroyed. Bruno Bettelheim was the first psychoanalyst to describe the psychic modifications arising from extreme situations and lasting throughout life. This paper invites the reader to reconsider this particular aspect of this author’s work, as distinct from the deprecating judgements prompted by his work on autism. Our aim is also to show that the modifications of psychic functioning linked to extreme experiences as described by Bettelheim can, unbeknown to the latter, be found in a number of his theoretical interpretations regarding psychosis and in his suggestions regarding treatment. Whilst it is consequently impossible today to follow Bettelheim along these practical and theoretical impasses, what else, we wonder, can be proposed in their place? Play perhaps, both as a practice and a metaphor of the session, might offer a useful opening.