Eric Berne Eric Berne Eric Berne (May 10, 1910 – July 15, 1970) 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 was 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
Charles Brenner (psychiatrist) Charles Brenner (psychiatrist) Charles Brenner (18 November 1913, in Boston – 19 May 2008) was an American psychoanalyst who served as President of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, and is perhaps best known for his contributions to drive theory, the structure of the mind, and conflict theory. He was for half a century an exemplary figure for psychoanalysis in America, being termed by Janet Malcolm “the intransigent purist of American psychoanalysis”. Brenner first made his name as the author of a so-called "Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis", which Eric Berne paired with Freud's "Outline of Psychoanalysis" as the best guide to