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Sigmund Freud envisioned psychoanalysis as a discipline devoted to the study of the human condition, grounded in the clinical realities of the analytic situation but inspired by the wisdom of the poets. He attracted colleagues from diverse backgrounds, individuals of culture and curiosity who were moved by his mission to illuminate the dark at the center of the psyche. The range of their collective interests and the enthusiastic spirit of discovery that animated their approach to psychoanalysis transformed a narrow clinical specialty into an expanding science of human nature. The intellectual character of the pioneering analysts was born of a broad erudition and a tradition of scholarship in the arts and sciences. This tradition, so alien to the technocratic ethos of our time, has been preserved and continued in the work of Martin S. Bergmann.
Martin Bergmann is a scholar of unusual accomplishment, a master of the humanities and a revered sage of psychoanalysis. He is responsible for more than forty scholarly papers and four volumes, and his favorite topics span an impressive range of subjects. His writings are distinctive, notable for their depth and originality, and for the historical perspective within which their themes are developed. Esteemed and respected as a scholar, Margin Bergmann is warmly and enthusiastically treasured as a teacher of psychoanalysis. His private seminars, conducted in his dining room, are a venerable institution in the psychoanalytic community of New York City. “Martin Bergmann may well be the most popular teacher of private seminars on psychoanalysis ever,” wrote Arlene Richards (1994, p. 3).
Martin Bergmann was born in Prague in 1913, the scion