Bernhard Berliner - International Psychoanalysis

Benveniste, D. (1994) Bernhard Berliner: San Francisco's First Émigré Analyst. The
Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology Newsletter, Fall.
Bernhard Berliner:
San Francisco's First Émigré Analyst
Daniel Benveniste
Bernhard Berliner was San Francisco's first émigré psychoanalyst. He was a quiet
man and with the exception of his ground-breaking work on an object relations approach
to masochism, he is virtually unknown to the younger generation of analysts and
therapists, in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this brief biographical sketch I will
introduce the reader to the life and work of one of San Francisco's distinguished
psychoanalytic pioneers, Bernhard Berliner.
Bernhard Berliner was born March 23, 1885 in Hanover, Germany, the son of
Manfred and Hannah Berliner. Manfred Berliner, a self-taught and highly disciplined
man, ran a business school, taught courses in business skills, and authored a textbook in
this field that was later translated into English and still used in courses at U.C. Berkeley
in the 1930s. Hannah Berliner boarded foreign students from the business school.
Together they had five children. From oldest to youngest they were Siegfried, Ida,
Bernhard, Anne, and Cora. Siegfried was a mathematician and businessman. Ida and
Anne immigrated to California and started sizable families. Cora was a professor of
economics, served in the liberal German government, the Weimar Republic, and was the
last Chairperson of the Association of German Jews before the Nazis murdered her. In
her final role as Chairperson, she helped countless people to escape Nazi Germany and
was instrumental in organizing the "Kinder Transporte." In this capacity, she knowingly
sacrificed her own life to these tasks. The Berliners were Jewish and Bernhard Berliner
recalled a "very strong anti-Semitic spirit" in Hanover which left him with bitter
memories of his childhood. He was, in fact, one of only two Jews in the entire
Humanistic Gymnasium that he attended (1)(2).
After his education at the Gymnasium, he went on to the University of Leipzig in
1903. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Leipzig in
April 1907 with a dissertation chaired by Wilhelm Wundt - the founder of experimental
psychology (3). Students of the history of psychology will recall that it was Wundt who
founded the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig in 1879 and also delineated the
methods of psychological inquiry into the experimental study of immediate experience,
referred to as "Ganzheit Psychology," and the study of language, myth and custom
referred to as Volkerpsychologie (folk psychology) (4). Berliner's dissertation was on The
Increase of Pure Color Stimulation in the Eye (Der Anstieg der reinen Farbenerregung im
Sehorgan), which was well within the province of Ganzheit Psychology (5). It was a
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piece of work that Wundt later described to Berliner's psychologist sister-in-law, Anna
Berliner, as "very good work." (6)
During the next two years Berliner studied medicine and took his medical degree
from the University of Freiburg in June 1909, following his internships at the University
Hospitals of Munich and Freiburg. In Munich he studied psychiatry under Emil Kraepelin
and then served as Assistant to the famous neurologist, Professor Hermann Oppenheim,
at the Clinic for Nervous Diseases from 1910-1914 in Berlin. Except for the interruption
caused by World War I, Berliner was in private practice in Berlin as a neuropsychiatrist
from 1912-1936. During this time he wrote fourteen papers on psychological and
neurological subjects. (7)
Berliner was a physician in the German military during the First World War, from
1914-1919. He performed general medicine, surgery, and some psychiatry. He held the
rank of Captain and was a "Frontkampfer" which was a category of soldier who served
on the front lines. He recalled that while in the cavalry, during a two-week push through
France, they rode 70-80 kilometers a day. During this ride one of the soldiers lost his belt
and as punishment was hit in the head several times by his commanding officer for this
infraction. Witnessing this scene, Berliner thought to himself "This war, we will not
win." Berliner was critical of the German military in other respects as well but said it was
impossible to voice a criticism without the threat of being court martialed (1)(7)(8).
In the early days of the war, while doing surgery on one of the soldiers in a makeshift hospital, well within French territory, a soldier tapped Berliner on the shoulder and
informed him that he and the rest of his squadron had just been captured by the French
and that he was now a prisoner of war. He was sent to a prisoner of war camp on an
island in the Atlantic. But, according to international agreements, which were still being
observed at that time, M.D.s were not held in P.O.W. camps for very long as they were
soon swapped for French M.D.s who had been taken prisoner by the Germans. Berliner
was released and promptly sent to the Russian front where he spent the rest of the war. In
1915 or 1916 he was wounded when some shrapnel hit him in the face. A few years later,
before discharge, he had a serious case of influenza from which he almost died. It may, in
fact, have been a case of malaria. In any event, Dr. Berliner was very "unmilitaristic" and
glad when the war ended. His daughter, Gabie Berliner, recalls him saying that during the
First World War he had slept in enough trenches that as a consequence he would never
take his family camping (1)(2)(8).
After the war, he resumed his practice in neuropsychiatry in Berlin where he
became interested in hypnosis (1). In October 1928 he began his analytic training at the
Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. During his training he became associated with Ernest
Jones, Franz Alexander, Otto Fenichel, Berta Bornstein, Edith Jacobson, Elizabeth Zetzel,
Karen Horney, Edith Weigert-Vowinckel, Jeno Harnik, Ernst Simmel, and others
(1)(7)(8).
During his training he was analyzed first by Wilhelm Reich and later by Carl
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Mueller-Braunschweig. Reich was recognized as a brilliant analyst, if not the leading
analyst in Berlin at that time. He was, however, in open conflict with Fenichel at the
Institute and opposed by Siegfried Bernfeld who was critical of Reich's efforts to
synthesize psychoanalysis with communism. Reich was eventually driven out of
psychoanalysis and went on to formulate the notion of orgone energy and the techniques
of "Orgone Therapy" which became the basis for many of the later evolving "bodywork
therapies." His book Character Analysis is still embraced as a classic in psychoanalysis
today (9).
Berliner's other analyst, Carl Muller-Braunschweig, was also a controversial figure.
Under Hitler, the Jews were driven out of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Society and it was
reorganized along the lines of the Nazi Party agenda and under the direction of Dr.
Mathias Heinrich Goring, cousin of the famous Nazi leader, Herman Goring. They even
changed the name of the Society to the Society for Psychotherapy and Knowledge of the
Human Soul. While other members of the Society left in protest, Muller-Braunschweig
co-operated and his co-operation was held suspect by many of the analysts for many
years to come (10).
Berliner was married to Wilhelmina Loevenson (an American born in
Russia) around 1919 and together they had a son and a daughter, Erwin and Renate. They
divorced in 1930 and Erwin remained living with his father. After a time Dr. Berliner
hired on a secretary/nanny named Hildegard Eisig. One thing led to another and in 1933
Bernhard Berliner and Hildegard Eisig were married. In 1935 the Berliners had a
daughter, Gabriele (commonly referred to as Gabie) (2)(8).
Mrs. Berliner recalls that in her first introduction to a group of psychoanalysts, one
of the prominent analysts, either Edith Jacobson or Elizabeth Zetzel, looked Mrs. Berliner
up and down and then said to Dr. Berliner "Next time you get married, you better let us
know in time!" (8).
In an interview with Mrs. Berliner I learned that in addition to Dr. Berliner's
analysis and usual coursework he was also in the Kinderseminar, which met at the
participants' homes. Knowing that "Kinder" means "children" in German, I asked if Dr.
Berliner had been a child analyst. Mrs. Berliner's reply was "No." I then asked if this was
a general background course in child development or child therapy. Again the answer
was "No." “Then why was it called the "Kinderseminar?"” I asked. Mrs. Berliner then
explained that the candidates were seen as the children in relation to the certified analysts.
Thus, the candidates’ seminar was called the kinderseminar or children's seminar, even
though Berliner, at that time, was between the ages of 43 and 47 years old (8).
The political situation in Germany was rapidly deteriorating. Berliner saw it was
time to leave. He had two sisters that immigrated to the United States in 1904 and 1908.
His daughter, Renate, and her mother were in the States. His Uncle Emil Berliner had
also emigrated to the States and his large family was living in Washington D.C..
Incidentally, his Uncle Emil was the inventor of the gramophone, the disc record, and the
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telephone transmitter. He was later involved with his son, Henry, in the development of
the helicopter (11). In any case, Bernhard Berliner had a number of contacts in the United
States. He had also been encouraged to move there by his father-in-law from his first
marriage and by Ernest Jones who had strongly encouraged Berliner to make the move to
San Francisco saying that he would be the first and only recognized psychoanalyst there
(1)(2).
In 1935, at 50 years of age, Berliner came to San Francisco to scout out the
possibilities of starting a new life for himself, his wife and his young daughter. He went
to Mt. Zion Hospital, arranged for an externship to begin the following year and returned
to Germany to collect his family (8).
They took a boat from Hamburg to New York, met with the New York analysts,
then took a Dutch boat down around and through the Panama Canal and up to San Diego
and then to Los Angeles where they met with the L.A. analysts with whom Dr. Berliner
had made prior contact during his 1935 visit to Los Angeles. From L.A. they continued
their journey by boat up to San Francisco. The Berliners arrived in San Francisco on
March 23rd 1936 - Dr. Berliner's 51st birthday. Mrs. Berliner recalled that it was a
"glorious day coming through the Golden Gate" and that the middle of the Golden Gate
Bridge was as yet unfinished. They moved into a little apartment on Bay Street near the
Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory and, at this relatively advanced age, Dr. Berliner began his
medical externship, in English, at Mt. Zion Hospital to satisfy the medical licensure
requirements in California. In addition to the externship he also studied all of the medical
fields and after one year passed the medical boards for his California Medical License.
The L.A. analysts sent him a few analytic patients and the first patient paid a fee of
$2 per session. Because the Berliners were living in a one-bedroom apartment, which
doubled as an analytic office, Mrs. Berliner would take little Gabie up to the roof when
patients were being seen. Gabie's earliest childhood memory is the smell of chocolate
from the Ghirardelli Chocolate factory. Dr. Berliner had been given introductions to some
of the staff at Mt. Zion Hospital by his psychoanalytic colleague in Chicago, Lionel
Blitzten. They included Dr. Ernst Wolff, a pediatrician sympathetic to psychoanalysis and
head of Mt. Zion's Child Guidance Clinic. In addition, Franz Alexander, in Chicago, sent
Berliner to see Dr. Joseph Thompson (1)(8).
Dr. Thompson was an American born analyst who trained at the WashingtonBaltimore Institute. He had been a Naval Surgeon and had wide ranging interests. In
addition to his medical and psychoanalytic studies he also studied natural history, eastern
religion (particularly Buddhism), and linguistics. He even published in these areas. In
addition, he wrote articles on psychoanalysis in the 1920s that appeared in The
Psychoanalytic Review, Military Surgeon, US Navy Medical Bulletin and a Hawaiian
Newspaper. He was associated with A.A. Brill, Franz Alexander, Sandor Lorand,
William Alanson White, Clarence Oberndorf, Geza Roeheim, and others. But he was
something of a renegade in his thinking and practice and consequently was viewed by
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some as a "rugged individualist" (12) and by others as a "wild analyst" (13). One of his
"wild" views, in contrast to the American Psychoanalytic Association, at that time, was
his fervent adherence to Freud's advocacy of lay analysis and Freud's corresponding
disapproval of a medical monopoly of psychoanalysis. Though Thompson was an M.D.,
he mistrusted M.D.s, the American Medical Association and the American
Psychoanalytic Association, which was leaning heavily in the direction of establishing
psychoanalysis as a medical monopoly in the mid-1930s. In fact, Thompson was on the
opposite side of the fence from his good friend A.A. Brill who was perhaps the strongest
advocate of restricting analytic training to M.D.s. Thompson came to San Francisco to
practice analysis in 1930 and soon took on two students, whom he trained to be analysts
in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that they didn't have medical degrees. They
were Aaron Morafka and Earl W. Nilsson. Nilsson left after a time to practice in Beverly
Hills and Morafka remained in San Francisco where he practiced as a lay analyst for 55
years. One of Thompson's other analysands, Jacques Schnier, was an accomplished
sculptor, an author of many articles on psychoanalysis and art and later went on to
practice analysis for a number of years. (12)
When Berliner came into town he followed up on Alexander's introduction to
Thompson and a meeting was arranged. They formed The Psychoanalytic Study Group of
San Francisco. A preliminary meeting was held at the Berliner's home on September 27,
1936. Berliner was elected President; Morafka Vice-President and Schnier Treasurer.
They agreed to sponsor a program entitled "What is Freud's Psychoanalysis?" to which
they would invite interested friends. Thompson, Schnier and Morafka wanted the
program to be held in a private home but Berliner wanted it to be held in a room at the
Medical Society. Thompson said the resistance was too great in the Medical Society
while Berliner said it would be worthwhile to break down the resistance. Thompson
finally agreed and the meeting ended. That evening, following the meeting, Thompson
called Morafka and Schnier together and said that Berliner was too much in favor of M.D.
analysis and suggested they all resign. They did and The Psychoanalytic Study Group of
San Francisco was disbanded (1)(8)(12)(14).
The Berliners left their apartment on Bay Street and moved into a flat on Parker
Avenue for three years until their new house on Commonwealth Avenue was built. (2)(8)
Berliner practiced in isolation until the arrival of Siegfried and Suzanne Bernfeld in
September of 1937. Together they formed a study group with the other newly arriving
émigré analysts, under the aegis of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute and later the
Topeka Psychoanalytic Institute. The members of this study group included Berliner, the
Bernfelds, Harold Jones, Edward Chace Tolman, Josephine and Ernest Hilgard, Else
Frenkel-Brunswik, Egon Brunswick, Jean and Donald MacFarlane, Anna Maenchen,
Emanuel Windholz, Erik Erikson, the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, the anthropologist
Robert Lowie, the pediatrician Ernst Wolff, and the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer
(1)(2)(8)(15).
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In 1938 the American Psychoanalytic Association passed a resolution against the
future training of laymen for the therapeutic use of psychoanalysis (16). By 1939 this had
resulted in tremendous conflict within the psychoanalytic community which had
subsequently grown to include several émigré "lay analysts" such as Siegfried and
Suzanne Bernfeld, Anna Maenchen, and Erik H. Erikson, and at least one American
trained analyst, R. Nevitt Sanford in San Francisco and several other "lay analysts" in Los
Angeles who were all considered to be part of the San Francisco psychoanalytic
community. Though, at that time, there were few if any M.D. analysts in San Francisco
that supported the exclusion of the lay analysts, most of them including Berliner, went
along with it begrudgingly if only to get the Institute established and ensure the stability
of their own uncertain professional and financial futures (8).
The founding meeting of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society took place in
the dining room of the Berliner's home at 120 Commonwealth Avenue in San Francisco
on March 8, 1942. The S.F. Psychoanalytic Society was the only Psychoanalytic Society
west of Topeka, Kansas and included charter members in San Francisco and Los Angeles,
California; Tucson, Arizona; and Seattle, Washington. Berliner was active in the
founding of the Society and served as its first Vice-President from 1942-44, under Ernst
Simmel's Presidency. Berliner served as President of the Society from 1948-50 (17).
Berliner became a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1935.
A member of the Chicago in 1936, a charter member of the Topeka in 1938 and a charter
member of the San Francisco in 1942. He was a training analyst from 1942-1962. (7)
In addition to his practice, his administrative duties at the Society and his teaching
responsibilities at the Institute, Berliner along with most of the other members of the
Institute contributed to the war effort by seeing patients at the Mt. Zion' Hospital
Veterans’ Rehabilitation Clinic under the guidance of Jasha (Jacob) Kasanin. Kasanin
brought together a multidisciplinary group of social workers, neurologists, psychologists,
general psychiatrists, recreational assistants, dieticians, Freudian psychoanalysts, and
Jungian analysts to work with returning veterans of the Second World War who were
traumatized by their experiences over seas (18).
The Berliners, Kasanins, Bernfelds, and Windholzs all bought weekend estates in
Marin County. The Berliners', in Fairfax, was the site of family and social gatherings.
When Dr. Berliner arranged for Renee Spitz to lecture in San Francisco in 1950, the
Institute picnic, in his honor, was held on the Berliner's land (2)(8)(19).
In addition to his earlier German publications on neuropsychiatric and
psychological topics, including his research on the influence of climate on psychological
states, Berliner also wrote a number of psychoanalytic papers (2). They include:
(1938) The Psychogenesis of a Fatal Organic Disease, The Psychoanalytic
Quarterly, Vol. 7, pp. 368-379.
(1940) Libido and Reality in Masochism, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Vol. 9, pp.
322-333.
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(1941) Short Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: Its Possibilities and its Limitations.
Bulletin of ther Menninger Clinic, Vol. 5, No. 6, pp. 204-213.
(1942) Symposium on Neurotic Disturbances of Sleep, International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, Vol. 23, part 2, p. 64.
(1942) The Concept of Masochism, The Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. 29, No. 4.
October, pp. 386-400.
(1945) Short Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, Vol.
9, No. 5, pp. 155-161.
(1946) On Some Religious Motives of Anti-Semitism, in Anti-Semitism: A Social
Disease, Edited by Ernst Simmel, with a Preface by Gordon Allport, International
University Press, pp. 79-84.
(1947) On Some Psychodynamics of Masochism, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly,
Vol. 16, No. 4, October, pp. 459-471.
(1958) The Role of Object Relations in Moral Masochism, The Psychoanalytic
Quarterly, Vol. 27.
(1966) Psychodynamics of the Depressive Character, The Psychoanalytic Forum,
Vol. 1, No. 3, Autumn, pp. 244-251, and response to discussants pp. 262-264, and an
additional Response, (1967) The Psychoanalytic Forum, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring, p. 103.
(unpublished manuscript) The Psychological Adjustment of the Jew to the
Changing Scene.
Berliner's work is cited in Ruben Fine's The History of Psychoanalysis (1970, pp.
325-326) for the important contribution he made to the psychoanalytic understanding of
masochism. Berliner asserts that in moral masochism "The subject accepts the sadism of
the love object for libidinal reasons and turns it upon himself by way of introjection,
identification, and superego formation." This concept of moral masochism departed from
the earlier views of masochism as an instinctual phenomenon derived from the death
instinct or as a component sexual drive (20). Berliner arrived at an ‘object relations’
formulation that had considerably more explanatory power than the previous
formulations. Berliner wrote "Masochism means loving a person who gives hate and ill
treatment" (1947, p. 460).
Berliner's sensitivity to this dynamic is reflected in his vivid memory of the World
War I soldier being beaten about the head for losing his belt! And we hear echoes of the
same theme in Dr. Berliner's speech at the celebration of his 90th birthday when, for the
group assembled, he recalled: "I cannot describe to you how much I had to suffer in my
young years, 12 years in a Prussian Gymnasium (which is a classical high school) from
anti-Semitism, which was particularly strong in my hometown, Hanover; what
humiliations and physical tortures I had to take. That was truly a hell. But for me it was a
great schooling in enduring hardships, so that I learned to say with the philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche: "What does not kill me makes me stronger.""(21) Thus just like
Freud and the other great analysts, Berliner's deep understanding of his own soul
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suffering seems to have led to both his compassion for others and an understanding of a
dynamic common to us all.
While his influence continues to enrich us through the literature he left behind his
influence extended beyond his literature through the work of his wife, Mrs. Hildegard
Berliner M.S. and his daughter Dr. Gabie Berliner Ph.D.. Mrs. Berliner took her Bachelor
of Arts degree in psychology and did additional graduate work at U.C. Berkeley where
she also was involved in the research study on The Authoritarian Personality directed by
Theodore Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson and Nevitt Sanford. She had
a Master's degree from San Francisco State University, was a Licensed Psychologist and
a School Psychologist. She worked for many years as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist
with children and adults and maintained a private practice in psychoanalytic
psychotherapy and supervision. She was a member of the Executive Committee and the
Faculty Committee of the San Francisco Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and
Psychoanalysis and was on the teaching faculties at MacAuley Neuropsychiatric Institute
and in the Department of Psychiatry at California Pacific Medical Center. Dr. Gabie
Berliner is a psychotherapist who works primarily with families and children but has also
supervised social work, psychology and psychiatric trainees. She has a Master's in
teaching, a Masters in Social Work and a Ph.D. in social work. She is on the Clinical
Consulting Faculty at the California Institute for Clinical Social Work
Though Bernhard Berliner was not known as a charismatic teacher or leader, he
fulfilled his teaching and administrative duties with dedication and efficiency, and in
return received the love and respect of his students and colleagues. To those that did not
know Berliner well, he was seen as quiet, very German, very Prussian, formal, orderly
and stiff. While this was his public persona, those that knew him well, knew him to be a
very private, very shy, warm, generous, patient, and kindly man who enjoyed working in
his garden, listening to music, going to the symphony, playing his cello, cultivating his
interests in literature and conservation and being at home with his friends and family. He
enjoyed nature, the hills, the forest, the plants, the wildlife, the seashore, good wine, good
food and good cigars. He was a wonderful host and had a good sense of humor.
(1)(2)(22)(23)
A good friend, a supportive husband and father, a tireless advocate for
psychoanalysis, a caring physician and analyst, Bernhard Berliner devoted himself to the
people and causes that he believed in up to the end. He suffered many physical assaults in
his final years as illness began to catch up with him, yet each time he rallied his resources,
overcame his illnesses and returned to work seeing patients and attending meetings at the
Institute. On November 26, 1976 at the age of 91 Bernhard Berliner died in bed with
Hildegard in a chair at his side. His last words to her: "Its time to get back to work." (3)
References
1) San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute (SFPI) Archives - Oral history interviews
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of Bernhard Berliner. Others in attendance conducting the interview were Mrs. Hildegard
Berliner, Dr. Gabie Berliner, and Dr. Felix Ocko. The interviews took place between Jan.
19, 1975 and March 27, 1975.
(2) Personal communication with Mrs. Hildegard Berliner and Dr. Gabie Berliner.
3) Alston, Edwin F. (1977) In Memoriam: Bernhard Berliner, San Francisco
Medical Society.
4) Leahey, T. (1980) A History of Psychology, Englewood Cliffs N.J., Prentice Hall.
5) Tinker, Miles A. (1932) Wundt's Doctorate Students and Their Theses 18751920, American Journal of Psychology, 44, 630-637.
6) Berliner, Anna (1959) Notes for a Lecture of Wundt and Leipzig, unpublished,
from the Archives of the History of American Psychology, Akron, Ohio.
7) SFPI Archives, Bernhard Berliner "Data on Training Analysts" and Curriculum
Vita
8) From this author's interview with Mrs. Hildegard Berliner
9) Harris, B. & Brock, A. (1991) Otto Fenichel and the Left Opposition in
Psychoanalysis, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 27.
10) Cocks, G. (1985) Psychotherapy in the Third Reich: The Goring Institute, New
York, Oxford University Press.
11)Associated Press biographical notes on Emil Berliner
12) From this author's interviews with Aaron Morafka
13) SFPI Archives, Letter from Robert Knight
14) From notes in the Jacques Schnier archive
15) From author's interviews with Ernest Hilgard
16) Bulletin American Psychoanalytic Association Vol. 1, June 1937-June 1938.
17) SFPI Archives - Minutes of Society Meetings
18) J.S. Kasanin (1945) The Organization of the Veteran's Rehabilitation Clinic of
the Mount Zion Hospital, Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, Vol. 9, No. 4.
19) Letters from Renee Spitz to Bernhard Berliner from the Archives of the History
of American Psychology, Akron, Ohio.
20) Fine, Reuben (1990) The History of Psychoanalysis, New York, Continuum
Publishing Co.
21) Bernhard Berliner (March 22, 1975) Speech at the Celebration of My 90th
Birthday - from Mrs. Berliner
22) Norman Anderson memorial tribute to Bernhard Berliner - Dec. 1976.
23) Edwin Alston memorial tribute to Bernhard Berliner - Dec. 1976.
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