Eric Berne, MD

picture credit: ericberne.com

David Bernstein, MD, was a general physician in Montreal, Quebec at a time when family doctors still made visits to their patients’ homes. His wife, Sarah was a writer and editor. Both were first generation immigrant Canadians. Both David and Sarah graduated from McGill University. On May 10, 1910, Dr. Bernstein and his wife were blessed with a son they named Lennard Eric Bernstein. Five years later, a daughter was born to them and she was named Grace. David contracted tuberculosis and died when he was just 38. Sarah raised her two children as a single parent.  

In time, David and Sarah’s son Lennard came to be known by his middle name Eric. Like his father, Eric studied medicine at McGill University Medical School where he earned his MD and Master of Surgery degrees in 1935. He went on to intern at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey in the United States and followed his internship with a two-year psychiatric residency at Yale School of Medicine’s psychiatric clinic. He then got a job as a Clinical Assistant in Psychiatry at Mt. Zion Hospital, New York City and also established a private practice in Norwalk, Connecticut. At the same time, he began training as a psychoanalyst. Now in his early 30s, he became an American citizen and shortened his last name to Berne. On the personal front, he married his first wife Ruth and had two children with her.

He joined the United States Army Medical Corps to help the American World War II effort in 1943 and served until 1946. By this time, he was divorced and he decided to move to California. This is where Berne resumed his studies as a psychoanalyst, wrote several seminal papers and eight major books, attained cult status as the founder of a theory called Transactional Analysis and married twice more before he had two heart attacks and died in 1970 at the age of sixty.

Dr. Eric Berne’s work includes:

"Intuition V: The Ego Image" 1957

"Ego States in Psychotherapy” 1957

"Transactional Analysis: A New and Effective Method of Group Therapy" 1958

The Mind in Action (1947)

A Layman's Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (1957)

Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (1961)

Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups (1963)

Games People Play (1964)

Principles Group Treatment (1966)

Sex in Human Loving (1970)

What Do You Say After You Say Hello (published posthumously in 1971)

You can access a complete bibliography of Eric Berne’s publications here:

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee, is Managing Partner at Expressions@Work, a training, consulting and mentoring studio for the development of communication and soft skills