Edmund Bergler ( , ; July 20, 1899 – February 6, 1962) was an Austrian-born American
psychoanalyst
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...
whose books covered such topics as childhood development, mid-life crises, loveless marriages, gambling, self-defeating behaviors, and homosexuality. He has been described as the most important psychoanalytic theorist of
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
in the 1950s.
![صورة إدموند بيرجلر](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A9_%D8%A5%D8%AF%D9%85%D9%88%D9%86%D8%AF_%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%AC%D9%84%D8%B1.png)
Biography
Edmund Bergler was born in
Kolomyia
Kolomyia, formerly known as Kolomea ( ua, Коломия, Kolomyja, ; pl, Kołomyja; german: Kolomea; ro, Colomeea; yi, ), is a city located on the Prut River in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (province), in western Ukraine. It serves as the admi ...
, in today's
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, in 1899 into a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family. Bergler fled
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
in 1937–38 and settled in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where he worked as a psychoanalyst. Bergler wrote 25 psychology books along with 273 articles that were published in leading professional journals. He also had unfinished manuscripts of dozens of more titles in the possession of the Edmund and Marianne Bergler Psychiatric Foundation. He has been referred to as "one of the few original minds among the followers of
Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...
". Delos Smith, science editor of
United Press International
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...
, said Bergler was "among the most prolific
Freudian theoreticians after Freud himself".
Summarizing his work, Bergler said that people were heavily defended against realization of the darkest aspects of human nature, meaning the individual's emotional addiction to unresolved negative emotions. He wrote in 1958, "I can only reiterate my opinion that the superego is the real master of the personality, that psychic masochism constitutes the most dangerous countermeasure of the unconscious ego against the superego's tyranny, that psychic masochism is 'the life-blood of neurosis' and is in fact the basic neurosis. I still subscribe to my dictum, '
Man's inhumanity to man
"Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge" is a dirge of eleven stanzas by the Scots poet Robert Burns, first published in 1784 and included in the first edition of ''Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect'' in 1786. The poem is one of Burns's many early ...
is equaled only by man's inhumanity to himself.'"
Bergler was the most important psychoanalytic theorist of homosexuality in the 1950s. According to Kenneth Lewes, a gay psychiatrist, "...Bergler frequently distanced himself from the central, psychoanalytical tradition, while at the same time claiming a position of importance within it. He thought of himself as a revolutionary who would transform the movement." Near the end of his life, Bergler became an embarrassment to many other analysts: "His views at conferences and symposia were reported without remark, or they were softened and their offensive edge blunted."
However, it is unknown where did Lewes got this information, because there is no published autobiography of Bergler.
Bergler was highly critical of sex researcher
Alfred C. Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey (; June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American sexologist, biologist, and professor of entomology and zoology who, in 1947, founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana University, ...
, and rejected the
Kinsey scale
The Kinsey scale, also called the Heterosexual–Homosexual Rating Scale, is used in research to describe a person's sexual orientation based on one’s experience or response at a given time. The scale typically ranges from 0, meaning exclusive ...
, deeming it to be based on flawed assumptions.
In an article published in the peer-reviewed medical journal
Psychiatric Quarterly
The ''Psychiatric Quarterly'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal that was established in 1915 as ''The State Hospital Quarterly'' ( and ). It obtained its current name in 1927. The publication's founding editor-in-chief was Horatio Pollock.
Abst ...
, Bergler criticized
Alfred C. Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey (; June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American sexologist, biologist, and professor of entomology and zoology who, in 1947, founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana University, ...
: "Statistically speaking, Kinsey avoids with 100 percent completeness even the smallest concession to the existence of the dynamic unconscious. According to the "taxonomic approach," to which Kinsey adheres, the "human animal," as Kinsey calls homo sapiens, seems not yet to have developed the unconscious part of his personality..." "Derogatory remarks about Freudian
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
are mainly based on ignorance or resistance, or both. When this pair of characteristics occurs in biased laymen, one explains it away as typical resistance to acceptance of unconscious facts. The reason for this attitude in biased scientists is, of course, identical, though less defensible."
Bergler also states that: "Psychoanalytically, we know today that a complicated inner defense is involved. Homosexuals approve of their perversion because such acceptance of it - corresponding to a defense mechanism - enables them to hide unconsciously their deepest conflict, oral-masochistic regression. Since the homosexual who has not been treated has no inkling of the real state of affairs, he clings "proudly" to his defense mechanism. Only in cases in which a portion of inner guilt is not satiated by the real difficulties (hiding, social ostracism, extortion) which every homosexual experiences does the problem of changing come up."
He is noted for his insistence on the universality of unconscious masochism. He is remembered for his theories about both homosexuality and
writer's block
Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Mike Rose found that this creative stall is not a result of commitment problems or th ...
– a term he coined in 1947.
Bergler, who did more work on the subject than any other psychoanalyst, argued that all gamblers gamble because of "psychic masochism".
Legacy
Novelist
Louis Auchincloss
Louis Stanton Auchincloss (; September 27, 1917 – January 26, 2010)Holcomb B. Noble and Charles McGrath''The New York Times''. Retrieved on January 27, 2010. was an American lawyer, novelist, historian, and essayist. He is best known as a novel ...
named his book ''The Injustice Collectors'' (1950) after Bergler's description of the unconscious masochist of that type.
Bergler's ''
Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life?'' (1956) was cited in
Irving Bieber
Irving Bieber (; 1909–1991) was an American psychoanalyst, best known for his study ''Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals'' (1962), in which Bieber took the position that homosexuality is an acquired condition.
Life and ca ...
''et al.''′s ''
Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals'' (1962). Bieber ''et al.'' mention Bergler briefly, noting that like
Melanie Klein
Melanie Klein (née Reizes; 30 March 1882 – 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested tha ...
, he regarded the oral phase as the most determining factor in the development of homosexuality.
The philosopher
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...
cited Bergler's ''The Basic Neurosis'' (1949) in his ''
Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty'' (1967), writing that, "Bergler's general thesis is entirely sound: the specific element of
masochism
Sadomasochism ( ) is the giving and receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation. Practitioners of sadomasochism may seek sexual pleasure from their acts. While the terms sadist and masochist refer ...
is the oral mother, the ideal of coldness, solicitude and death, between the
uterine
The uterus (from Latin ''uterus'', plural ''uteri'') or womb () is the hollow organ, organ in the female reproductive system, reproductive system of most female mammals, including humans that accommodates the embryonic development, embryonic an ...
mother and the
Oedipal mother."
Arnold M. Cooper, former Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College and a past president of the
American Psychoanalytic Association
The American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) is an association of psychoanalysts in the United States. APsaA serves as a scientific and professional organization with a focus on education, research, and membership development.
APsaA comprises ...
, said of Bergler's work: "I have adapted my model for understanding masochism from the work of Bergler, who regarded masochism as the basic neurosis from which all other neurotic behaviors derive. As long ago as 1949 . . . he felt, and I agree,
hat the mechanism of oralityis paradigmatic for the masochistic character.
Freud critic Max Scharnberg has given Bergler's writings as an example of what he sees as the transparent absurdity of much psychoanalytic work in his ''The Non-Authentic Nature of Freud's Observations'' (1993), writing that few present-day psychoanalysts would defend Bergler. Scharnberg disapprovingly notes Bergler's claim that all homosexuals "are subservient when confronted with a stronger person, merciless when in power, unscrupulous about trampling on a weaker person."
Bergler's theories, with their assumption that the preservation of infantile megalomania or infantile omnipotence is of prime importance in the reduction of anxiety, have been seen as anticipating
Heinz Kohut
Heinz Kohut (3 May 1913 – 8 October 1981) was an Austrians, Austrian-born United States, American psychoanalyst best known for his development of self psychology, an influential school of thought within psychodynamics, psychodynamic/psychoanaly ...
's
self psychology
Self psychology, a modern psychoanalytic theory and its clinical applications, was conceived by Heinz Kohut in Chicago in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and is still developing as a contemporary form of psychoanalytic treatment. In self psychology, the ...
.
Psychotherapist Mike Bundrant has based much of his work on Bergler’s early theory of psychic masochism, although Bundrant has distanced himself from Bergler’s views on homosexuality, claiming Bergler was victim to his own prejudice in this area, or simply mistaken. Bundrant discusses inner masochism in the form of “psychological attachments” that fit consistent patterns over time.
Written works
* Bergler, Edmund. (1934). ''Frigidity in Women'', with Edward Hitschmann (in German). New York (English version): Nervous and Mental Disease Monographs
* Bergler, Edmund. (1935). ''Talleyrand-Napoleon-Stendhal-Grabbe'' (in German). Vienna: Internationale Psychoanalytische Verlag
* Bergler, Edmund. (1937). ''Psychic Impotence in Men'' (in German). Berne: Hans Huber Verlag
* Bergler, Edmund. (1946). ''Unhappy Marriage and Divorce'', with an Introduction by A. A. Brill. New York: International Universities Press
* Bergler, Edmund. (1948). ''The Battle of the Conscience''. Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute of Medicine
* Bergler, Edmund. (1948). ''Divorce Won't Help''. New York: Harper & Brothers
* Bergler, Edmund. (1949). ''Conflict in Marriage''. New York: Harper & Brothers
* Bergler, Edmund. (1949). ''The Basic Neurosis''. New York: Harper and Brothers
* Bergler, Edmund. (1949). ''The Writer and Psychoanalysis''. Garden City: Doubleday and Co.
* Bergler, Edmund. (1951). ''Money and Emotional Conflicts''. Doubleday and Co.
* Bergler, Edmund. (1951). ''Neurotic Counterfeit-Sex''. New York: Grune & Stratton
* Bergler, Edmund. (1952). ''The Superego''. New York: Grune & Stratton
* Bergler, Edmund. (1953). ''Fashion and the Unconscious''. New York: Robert Brunner
* Bergler, Edmund, & Kroger, W. (1954). ''Kinsey's Myth of Female Sexuality: The Medical Facts''. New York: Grune and Stratton
* Bergler, Edmund. (1954). ''The Revolt of the Middle-Aged Man''. New York: A.A. Wyn
* Bergler, Edmund. (1956). ''Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life''. New York: Hill and Wang
* Bergler, Edmund. (1956). ''Laughter and the Sense of Humor''. New York: Intercontinental Medical Book Corp.
* Bergler, Edmund. (1957). ''Psychology of Gambling''. New York: Hill & Wang
* Bergler, Edmund. (1958). ''Counterfeit-Sex: Homosexuality, Impotence and Frigidity''. New York: Grune and Stratton
* Bergler, Edmund. (1959). ''Principles of Self-Damage''. New York: The Philosophical Library
* Bergler, Edmund. (1959). ''One Thousand Homosexuals: Conspiracy of Silence, or Curing and Deglamorizing Homosexuals?'' Paterson, New Jersey: Pageant Books
* Bergler, Edmund. (1960). ''Tensions Can be Reduced to Nuisances''. New York: Collier Books
* Bergler, Edmund. (1961). ''Curable and Incurable Neurotics''. New York: Liveright Pub. Co.
* Bergler, Edmund. (1963). ''Justice and Injustice'', with
J.A.M. Meerloo. New York: Grune and Stratton
* Bergler, Edmund. (1964). ''Parents Not Guilty''. New York: Liveright Pub. Co.
* Bergler, Edmund. (1969). ''Selected Papers: 1933–1961''. New York: Grune and Stratton
* Bergler, Edmund. (1998). ''The Talent for Stupidity: The Psychology of the Bungler, the Incompetent, and the Ineffectual''. Madison, CT: International Universities Press
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergler, Edmund
1899 births
1962 deaths
Jewish emigrants from Austria to the United States after the Anschluss
American psychoanalysts
Psychoanalysts from Vienna
Conversion therapy
Jewish psychoanalysts
People from Kolomyia
Medical writers on LGBT topics