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Eric Berne Quotes

Eric Berne was a Canadian-born psychiatrist who, in the middle of the 20th century, created the theory of transactional analysis as a way of explaining human behavior. Berne’s theory of transactional analysis was based on the ideas of Freud but were distinctly different. Freudian psychotherapists focused on talk therapy as a way of gaining insight to their patient’s personalities. Berne believed that insight could be better discovered by analyzing patients’ social transactions. Berne was among the first psychiatrists to apply game theory to the field of psychiatry, along with the famed psychiatrist-psychoanalyst Thomas Szasz.

✵ 10. May 1910 – 15. July 1970
Eric Berne photo

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Eric Berne: 8 quotes10 likes

Famous Eric Berne Quotes

“A healthy person goes "Yes," "No," and "Whoopee!" An unhealthy person goes "Yes, but," "No, but," and "No whoopee."”

Eric Berne

Quoted in They Shoot Managers, Don't They? http://books.google.com/books?id=iXkq-lFFJpcC&lpg=PP1&dq=They%20shoot%20managers%2C%20don't%20they&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false by Terry L. Paulson, pg. 3

“A loser doesn’t know what he’ll do if he loses but talks about what he’ll do if he wins and a winner doesn’t talk about what he’ll do if he wins but knows what he’ll do if he loses.”

Eric Berne

“The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.”

Eric Berne book Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships

Games People Play: the Psychology of Human Relations (1964)

“Awareness requires living in the here and now, and not in the elsewhere, the past or the future.”

Eric Berne book Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships

Source: Games People Play

“The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours”

Eric Berne book Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships

Source: Games People Play

“Each person designs his own life, freedom gives him the power to carry out his own designs, and power gives the freedom to interfere with the designs of others.”

Eric Berne

What Do You Say After You Say Hello? (1973)

“No man is a hero to his wife's psychiatrist.”

Eric Berne

Quoted in a review of Berne's book Sex in Human Loving (1963), "Talks on Sex by the Gamesman" http://books.google.com/books?id=jVMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=RA1-PA16&dq=LIFE%20Dec%2018%2C%201970&pg=RA1-PA7#v=onepage&q=berne&f=false by David Reuben, M.D., Life, Vol. 69, No. 25, 18 December 1970.

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