The Revolt of the Middle-Aged Man

By Edmund Bergler. New York: International Universities Press. 1984. Pp. xxiv + 312.

Money and Emotional Conflicts. By Edmund Bergler. New York: International Universities Press. 1985. Pp. xiv + 269.

The Psychology of Gambling. By Edmund Bergler. New York: International Universities Press. 1985. Pp. x + 244.

With the reissue of the above three books by Edmund Bergler, we are given once more the opportunity to assess the contributions to psychoanalysis of a most original thinker and prolific writer. In the foreword to the first of the above listed books, we learn that over the years nearly 300 scientific papers and more than two dozen books constituted the reported work on the application of Bergler's special viewpoint to all manifestations of neurotic suffering.

Though the 'Berglerian' theory is stated in many places throughout these works, their most comprehensive discussions are provided in three other works: The Basic Neurosis, The Battle of the Conscience and The Superego. In each of these, there are basic principles, so that a brief review may serve as a general guide. The Basic Neurosis proposes that the starting point for psychic development and hence for neurosogenesis is, universally, the stage of infantile omnipotence, with autarchic fantasies. As such strivings are thwarted and collapse, there is produced a fury out of proportion to any means of expression because of motoric helplessness. Later, the inhibition of aggression, because the parents are its objects, leads to the 'triad of retribution': punishment, moral reproach, guilt. In those who persist in pursuing the original aims and objects, the result can lead to psychic masochism with the unconscious love of humiliation, defeat, refusal.

Hence the 'genetic picture' comprises this sequence: offence to megalomania incurred by libidinous frustration, fury, motor helplessness, with external and later internal inhibition of aggression, a boomeranging of aggression, and a libidinization of gu