Principles of Self-Damage

Introduction to Bergler

Edmund Bergler was a popular author in the 1950s who wrote 24 books and 300 papers for professionals and the general public. He roughly divides people into four categories: Not-too-neurotic (normal), slightly neurotic, moderately neurotic and highly neurotic. In his book, Curable and Incurable Neurotics, he ponders a fifth category, which he considers as possibly incurable by today's knowledge, as "schizoids." His overriding theory for what ails people, to one degree or another, is what he calls "psychic masochism." It's basically an unconscious loyalty or attachment to what happened before the age of 18 months of age when the child was passive and helpless. We don't remember this time but we try to communicate it to ourselves and especially to others ("It's takes two to know one." Gregory Bateson; "Grief is healed when it is witnessed by a caring other." ...) in the form of "action-language" or what Bergler calls "pseudo aggression" and "magic gestures." The following quote from this book in small part describes his theory:

"The childhood history of these neurotics produced the image of a disagreeable, nagging, pretentious and opinionated mother (the father being a weakling). Instead of the normal process of overcoming their childhood disappointment, these children become masochistically attached to their mothers. Later in life, these children, only externally grown up, still acted two types of inner defense, both pertaining to the enshrined image of the mother: 1. Pseudo-aggression ... 2. Unconscious execution of a 'negative magic gesture': 'I shall show you in my behavior how I did not want to be treated.' In this 'reversal,' these [individuals] unconsciously acted the 'bad' mother, demoting the innocent (by chance) victim to an image of - themselves. ... In recreating the dependence in reverse ('unconscious repetition compulsion') - now seemingly actively 'dishing it out,' whereas previously they themselves had been on the passive-receiving end - they 'proved' their own alleged activity, and narcissistic 'restitution.' ... the victims represented their own feeling in childhood." pg 276-7

What mainly fuels pseudo aggression and magic gestures is unresolved "infantile megalomania." While in the womb and in the extended womb of the first 18 months of life, the child assumes that he makes it all happen as if he had magic powers. The child's unconscious conscious or "superego" protects the child from physic pain but then later on wants a "bribe" in the form of a "lesser crime" - anything dysfunctional. The result is what Bergler calls the pleasure-in displeasure pattern. The pleasure is the appeasing of the superego and the displeasure is the repetitive neurotic pattern, whatever form that may take.

What also fuels psychic masochism is what Bergler calls "the libidinalization of guilt." Since the child is wired to bond and "libido [or life force] is object seeking" (Fairbairn), the feelings he experiences with mother he associates with mother and later in life looks for those feelings to the degree he is connected to her. The superego calls this a major crime but will accept a plea to a lesser one, something dysfunctional. "... the fellow who really wanted X gets its watered-down surrogate, Y - and this only after paying an exorbitant price!" pg 101 Ample examples are provided.

Bergler's aim is to make conscious how defense mechanisms are a layer over psychic masochism, itself a type of defense mechanism.