Berne - A Laymans Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis

Copyright 1975 by Dr. Eric Berne.

This electronic format is published by Tantor eBooks, a division of Tantor Media, Incorporated,
and was produced in the year 2011.

THIS book is unique in more than one way. The author is a well-trained psychoanalytic psychiatrist, an avowed Freudian, and yet it took a number of chapters before I was actually convinced of it. For, unlike those who espouse certain theories and plunge right into the midst of them, Dr. Berne maintains such an objective and unbiased attitude that he at first gives the impression of a keen prober rather than an ardent adherent of Freud. The Mind in Action starts with a sort of biological survey of the general aspect of mental development. It is a lucid exposition, unencumbered by technical expressions, which explains the normal functions of the brain, in terms of feeling and action; the most powerful urges and their control in childhood and adult life and the reaction of the whole organism to the environment. Dr. Berne has the happy faculty of documenting and presenting abstruse mental processes in such a simple and alluring way that he can hold the interest of even a jaded psychoanalytic reader. But following him for a few chapters one realizes that Dr. Berne endeavors to embody Freud into everything that touches on and appertains to the functions of the mind.

In my efforts to explain the authors mode of operation it occurred to me that psychoanalytically Dr. Berne is just about 40 years younger than the present writer. In other words he belongs to the post bellum period of psychoanalytic recognition, and hence can evaluate Freuds contribution as part and parcel of the whole progressive development of psychiatry. In other words Dr. Berne is a young Freudian who like the new generation of Egyptians did not know Joseph and hence could follow a new path and expound the new psychology without the affectivity of the older Freudians. The psychoanalytic theories were well established when Dr. Berne mastered them; that is why he could complacently survey the whole field of psychoanalysis, the fons et origo as well as all the deviations from it, and then easily separate the kernel from the sheaf. Having read everything written on Freud and psychoanalysis since I first introduced him here, I feel that Dr. Berne has succeeded in presenting the mind in action in a manner that will interest and instruct not only the intelligent layman but also the psychoanalyst and physician.

IT is gratifying to realize that there has been a steady demand for this book during the past twenty years. It was written while I was a medical officer in the Army during World War II and had the choice every evening of listening to the clack-clack of my typewriter or the click of the slot machines at the Officers Club, and for the most part I chose the former. It was originally published in a hard cover as The Mind in Action. In that form it received satisfactory and even enthusiastic reviews in the literary, psychiatric, and psychoanalytic press, and was subsequently published in Great Britain and translated into Swedish, Italian, and Spanish. In 1957 the second edition appeared as a quality paperback with the title A Laymans Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis, under the imprint of Simon and Schuster; and a few years later Grove Press put out a low-priced paperback edition with the same title, so that two competing editions were on the market at the same time. In these various forms the book has sold well over 250,000 copies.

Radical changes in the practice of out-patient, hospital and community psychiatry have resulted from the rapid advances in drug therapy and group therapy during the last ten years. In addition, transactional analysis and other new approaches to psychotherapy have gradually been taking over in areas where psychoanalysis has not proven satisfactory. In fairness to the public, therefore, since interest in the book promises to be sustained, the present extensive revision was undertaken.

After careful deliberation, I decided to retain the section on physical types, as an indication that the body is here to staysomething which is too often overlooked by nonmedical therapists, particularly those trained in the social sciences. Part I and most of Part II treat the human being as an energy system, and for this point of view Freudian theory is the best approach. I have followed the strict version of Freud, which separates the sex instinct from the death instinct, and have given equal weight to Eros and Thanatos. That makes everything much easier to explain, and certainly fits in better with the historical events of the last thirty years, which are not easy to understand from libido theory alone, but become much clearer by introducing Paul Federns concept of mortido.

I have included contributions from several of my colleagues. Dr. Claude Steiner, who specializes in the treatment of alcoholism, drug addiction, and other forms of what he calls tragic behavior, has contributed to the rewriting of Chapter Seven, which deals with those topics. Dr. John Dusay has written a chapter on transactional analysis, and Mrs. Hilma Dickson, Mrs. Mary Edwards, Dr. Muriel James, and Dr. Ray Poindexter, have each contributed a section on their respective specialties. They know more about their fields than I do, and Dr. Dusay has treated transactional analysis much more objectively than I could, and I am grateful to all of them.

E. B.
Carmel, California
September 1967

FEW relationships in my experience are as consistently gratifying as that between a contented author and a contented publisher. Each communication which the author receives brings material as well as spiritual nourishment. If the critics and the public are also contented, then the satisfaction is complete. The reception accorded the first edition of this book in America, Great Britain, Sweden and Italy has been with few exceptions a source of pleasure during the past ten years. This has been in considerable measure the result of the friendly editorial advice of Mr. Henry W. Simon.

Rereading the book after a decade, I found it rather appealing, and at times had the well-known Wilde reaction: I wish Id said that! It was agreeable, after a moments reflection, to remember that I had. My only regret was that the war seemed, in minor instances, to have distracted me from broader scientific points of view. I am glad now to have an opportunity to reconsider.

As to the changes in the present edition, the section on Man As a Political Animal has been deleted, and this topic will be treated in a separate volume.* In its place, a section on the new wonder drugs of psychiatry has been inserted. The section on group therapy has been rewritten, and the section on shock treatment has been brought up to date. The Footnotes for Philosophers have been revised and the bibliographies have been brought up to date where this seemed advisable. In some instances, however, the old books still seem better than the new. And here and there a paragraph has been altered to accord with new approaches. It is hoped that any nonspecialist who desires information about contemporary psychiatry or psychoanalysis will in most cases find it here; the footnotes are designed to give reputable sources from which further details can be obtained.

*The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1963; New York: Grove Press, 1966.