Edmund Bergler

Edmund Bergler (1899-1962) was an American psychoanalyst.

Bergler, an Austrian Jew, fled the Nazis in 1938 and lived in New York City. Fact|date=September 2008 He wrote 24 psychology books along with 273 articles that were published in leading professional journals. Fact|date=September 2008 He also had unfinished manuscripts of dozens of more titles in the possession of the Edmund and Marianne Bergler Psychiatric Foundation. Fact|date=September 2008

Bergler was the most important theorist of homosexuality in the 1950s.cite book
last= Lewes
first= Kenneth
title= The Psychoanalytic Theory of Male Homosexuality
year= 1988
publisher= New American Library
location= New York
isbn= 0-452-01003-9] He was also a leading theorist on the unconscious and on self-defeating and self-damaging behaviors. According to Kenneth Lewes, "...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."

Bergler's 1956 book "Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life" was cited in Irving Bieber et al's 1962 book "Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study". Bieber et al mentioned Bergler briefly, noting that like Melanie Klein, he regarded the oral phase as the most determining factor in the development of homosexuality. [Irving Bieber, "Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals", Basic Books Inc, 1962 ]

Other writers have taken an interest in Bergler. Gilles Deleuze wrote in his 1967 book "Masochism", "...we feel that Bergler's general thesis is entirely sound: the specific element of masochism is the oral mother, the ideal of coldness, solicitude and death, between the uterine mother and the Oedipal mother." [Gilles Deleuze, "Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty", Zone Books, 1991]

Bibliography

# Bergler, Edmund. (1934). "Frigidity in Women", with Edward Hitschmann (in German). New York (English version): Nervous and Mental Disease Mongraphs
# 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