Eric Berne

Eric Berne (May 10, 1910 – July 15, 1970) was a
Canadian-born psychiatrist who, in the middle of the 20th
century, created the theory of transactional analysis as a
way of explaining human behavior . Berne’s theory of
transactional analysis was based on the ideas of Freud
but were distinctly different. Freudian psychotherapists
focused on talk therapy as a way of gaining insight to
their patient’s personalities. Berne believed that insight
could be better discovered by analyzing patients’ social
transactions.[1] Berne was among the first psychiatrists to
apply game theory to the field of psychiatry, along with
the famed psychiatrist-psychoanalyst Thomas Szasz.
2 Career (1938–1970)
From 1938-40, Berne was an assistant physician at Ring
Sanitarium, Arlington Heights, Massachusetts.[4]
From 1940-43 he was employed as a psychiatrist in a san-
itarium in Connecticut, and concurrently as a clinical as-
sistant in psychiatry at Mt Sinai Hospital in New York.
He also maintained a private practice.[4]
In 1943, during World War II, Berne joined the United
States Army Medical Corps and served as a psychiatrist.
He rose from the rank of Lieutenant, to Captain, and then
to Major.[4] His assignments included Spokane, Washing-
ton, Ft. Ord, California and Brigham City, Utah.[2]

1 Background and education After his discharge in 1946, he settled in Carmel, Cal-
ifornia and resumed his psychoanalytic training that he
(1927–1938) had begun in New York City, prior to the War, at the
San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.[2] In
[2]
Eric Berne was born on May 10, 1910 in Montreal, Que- 1947-1949 Berne studied under with Erik Erikson.
bec, Canada, as Eric Leonard Bernstein. He was the son From 1949 and 1964, Berne had a private practices in
of David Hillel Bernstein, MD, a general practitioner, and both Carmel and San Francisco and kept up a demanding
Sarah Gordon Bernstein, a professional writer and editor. pace of research, teaching in addition.[2]
His only sibling, his sister Grace, was born five years later.
He took an appointment in 1950 as Assistant Psychiatrist
The family immigrated to Canada from Poland and Rus-
at Mt. Zion Hospital, San Francisco, and simultaneously
sia. Both parents graduated from McGill University in
began serving as a Consultant to the Surgeon General of
Montreal. Eric was close to his father and spoke fondly
the US Army.[2]
of how he accompanied his father, a physician, on med-
ical rounds. Eric later recounted stories of travelling on In 1951, he accepted a position of Adjunct and Attending
a horse-pulled sleigh on ice in the cold Montreal winters Psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration and Mental
with his father to visit patients.[2] Hygiene Clinic, San Francisco.[2]
Berne’s father died of tuberculosis when Berne was 11. The years from 1964 to 1970 were restless ones for Berne.
His mother then supported herself and her two children His personal life became chaotic and he focused on his
working as an editor and writer. She encouraged her son writing.[2]
to follow in his father’s footsteps and to study medicine.[2]
Berne received his baccalaureate degree in 1931[3] and an
M.D. and C.M. (Master of Surgery) from McGill Univer-
sity Medical School in 1935.[2]
3 Transactional analysis
Berne came to the United States in 1935 when he began Main article: Transactional analysis
an internship at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey. Af-
ter completing his one-year internship in 1936, he began
Berne created the theory of transactional analysis as a
his psychiatric residency at the Psychiatric Clinic of Yale
way to explain human behavior . Berne’s theory was
University School of Medicine, where he worked for two
years.[2] based on the ideas of Freud but were distinctly different.
Freudian psychotherapists focused on patient’s personal-
In 1939, Berne became an American citizen and short- ities. Berne believed that insight could be better discov-
ened his name from Eric Lennard Bernstein to Eric ered by analyzing patients’ social transactions.[1] Berne
Berne. mapped interpersonal relationships to three ego-states of
In 1949, he was admitted as a Fellow in the American the individuals involved: the Parent, Adult, and Child
Psychiatric Association.[2] state. He then investigated communications between in-

1
2 4 GAMES PEOPLE PLAY (BOOK)

dividuals based on the current state of each. He called nizations and Groups (1963) examined the same analysis
these interpersonal interactions transactions and used the in a broader context than one-on-one interaction.
label games to refer to certain patterns of transactions
which popped up repeatedly in everyday life.
The origins of transactional analysis can be traced to the 4 Games People Play (book)
first five of Berne’s six articles on intuition, which he be-
gan writing in 1949. Even at this early juncture and while Main article: Games People Play (book)
still working to become a psychoanalyst, his writings chal- Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relation-
lenged Freudian concepts of the unconscious.[5]
In 1956, after 15 years of psychoanalytic training, Berne
was refused admission to the San Francisco Psychoan-
alytic Institute as a fully-fledged psychoanalyst. He in-
terpreted the request for several more years of train-
ing as a rejection and decided to walk away from
psychoanalysis.[4] Before the end of the year, he had writ-
ten two seminal papers, both published in 1957.

1. In the first article, Intuition V: The Ego Image, Berne

referenced P. Federn, E. Kahn, and H. Silberer, and
indicated how he arrived at the concept of ego states,
including his idea of separating “adult” from “child.”
2. The second paper, Ego States in Psychotherapy, was
based on material presented earlier that year at the
Psychiatric Clinic, Mt. Zion Hospital, San Fran-
cisco, and at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric
Clinic, U.C. Medical School. In that second article,
he developed the tripartite scheme used today (Par-
ent, Adult, and Child), introduced the three-circle
method of diagramming it, showed how to sketch
contaminations, labeled the theory, “structural anal-
ysis,” and termed it “a new psychotherapeutic ap-
proach.”
A few months later, he wrote a third article, titled Trans-
actional Analysis: A New and Effective Method of Group
Therapy, which was presented by invitation at the 1957
Western Regional Meeting of the American Group Psy-
chotherapy Association of Los Angeles. With the pub-
lication of this paper in the 1958 issue of the American
Journal of Psychotherapy, Berne’s new method of diag-
nosis and treatment, transactional analysis, became a per-
manent part of the psychotherapeutic literature. In addi-
tion to restating his concepts of ego states and structural
analysis, the 1958 paper added the important new fea-
tures of transactional analysis proper (i.e. the analysis of
transactions), games, and scripts.[5]
His seminar group from the 1950s developed the term
transactional analysis (TA) to describe therapies based on
his work. By 1964, this expanded into the International
Transactional Analysis Association. While still largely ig-
nored by the psychoanalytic community, many therapists
have put his ideas in practice.
In the early 1960s he published both technical and popu-
lar accounts of his conclusions. His first full-length book Some of this terminology became a part of the popular
on TA was published in 1961, titled Transactional Analy- American vocabulary.
sis in Psychotherapy.[3] Structures and Dynamics of Orga- Berne said that ‘any social intercourse (…) has a biologi-
Games People Play, Dell Paperbacks, 1964 copy, Retail price
$1.25
ships is a bestselling 1964 book by that has sold more than
five million copies.[6] The book describes both functional
and dysfunctional social interactions.
The essence of games described by Berne are that they
are not zero-sum games, (i.e. one must win at the other’s
expense), where the person who benefits from a transac-
tion wins the game. On the contrary, the “games people
play” usually pay all of the players off, even the ostensibly
losers, since they are about psychic equilibrium or pro-
moting adopted self-damaging social roles instead of ra-
tional benefits. These payoffs are not consciously sought
by the players but they are leading to the ultimate uncon-
scious life script of each as set by their parental family
interactions and favored emotions.
Despite having been written for professional therapists,
the book became a New York Times bestseller and made
Berne famous.[3] The book clearly presented everyday ex-
amples of the ways in which human beings are caught up
in the games they play. Berne gave these games mem-
orable titles such as “Now I've Got You, You Son of a
Bitch”, “Wooden Leg”, “Why Don't You... / Yes, But...”,
and “Let’s You and Him Fight”.

cal advantage over no intercourse at all’, so, people need
any form of ‘stroking’ (a physical contact, e.g., exchange)
to live.[7]
5 Name and pseudonyms
In 1943 he changed his legal name from Eric Lennard
Bernstein to Eric Berne.[8]
Berne had an irrepressible sense of humour, which was
particularly evident in his writing. For example, in his
article entitled Who was condom? Berne wrote about the
contraceptive, the condom, and whether a man named
Condom ever existed.[4] While at McGill he wrote for sev-
eral student newspapers using pseudonyms. He continued
to use write under pseudonyms such as Cyprian St. Cyr
(“Cyprian Sincere”) in whimsical articles in the Transac-
tional Analysis Bulletin.
6 Personal life
Berne was married three times. His first wife was Eli-
nor McRae. They married in 1942, had two children,
and divorced acrimoniously in 1945.[8] In 1949 he mar-
ried Dorothy DeMass Way, with whom he also had two 10 References
children before their divorce in 1964.[8] After his popular
success, Eric married a third time, to Torre Peterson in
Footnotes
1967. The couple took up residence in Carmel, Califor-
nia, where he wrote, but he continued some clinical work
in San Francisco. This marriage also ended in divorce, in [1] “Transactional Analysis”.
early 1970.
7 Death
Berne died of a heart attack in Carmel on July 15, 1970.[3]
8 Bibliography
• The Mind in Action; 1947, New York, Simon and
Schuster.
• The Structures and Dynamics of Organizations and
Groups; 1961; (1984 Paperback reprint: ISBN 0-
345-32025-5).
• Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy; 1961;
(1986 reprint: ISBN 0-345-33836-7).
• Sex in Human Loving; 1963.
• Games People Play: the Psychology of Human Rela-
tions; 1964 (1978 reprint, Grove Press, ISBN 0-345-
17046-6); (1996 Paperback, ISBN 0-345-41003-3)
3
• The Happy Valley; 1968, Random House Publisher,
ISBN 0-394-47562-3
• A Layman’s Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanaly-
sis (Paperback); 1975, Grove Press; ISBN 0-394-
17833-5
• What Do You Say After You Say Hello?; 1973; ISBN
0-553-23267-3
• A Montreal Childhood; 2010, Seville (Spain), Edi-
torial Jeder. ISBN 978-84-937032-4-0
9 See also
• Claude Steiner
• Mind games
• Script analysis
• Games People Play (Joe South song) thought to be
a direct reference to Eric Berne’s work on transac-
tional analysis.
disorders.org. Retrieved
September 1, 2011.
[2] Calcaterra, Nicholas Berne. “Biography of Eric Berne”.
ericberne.com. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
[3] Stewart, Ian (1992). Eric Berne: Volume 2 of Key Figures
in Counselling and Psychotherapy. London: Sage Publi-
cations. ISBN 0-8039-8466-9.
[4] Heathcote, Ann. “Eric Berne: A biographical sketch”.
European Association for Transactional Analysis.
[5] Staff writer. “Eric Berne, Founder”. itaaworld.org. The
International Transactional Analysis Association. Re-
trieved October 12, 2015.
[6] Berne, Eric (1964). Games People Play – The Basic Hand
Book of Transactional Analysis. New York: Ballantine
Books. ISBN 0-345-41003-3.
[7] D. Walczak. 2015. The process of exchange, solidarity
and sustainable development in building a community of
responsibility. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences,
6 (1S1):506.
[8] Rosner, Rachael (2005), “Eric Berne”, in Carnes, Mark
Christopher; Betz, Paul R., American National Biography:
Supplement, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-
19-522202-4
4 12 EXTERNAL LINKS

11 Further reading
• Jorgensen, Elizabeth Watkins; Jorgensen, Henry
Irvin (1984), Eric Berne, Master Gamesman: A
Transactional Biography, New York: Grove Press,
ISBN 0-394-53846-3

12 External links
• Eric Berne website maintained by his family
• USCF: Eric L. Berne documents archive
 5

13 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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