Afterburn (psychotherapy) Afterburn (psychotherapy) Afterburn is a psychological term coined by Eric Berne, who defined it as "the period of time before a past event is assimilated". Eric Berne, the founding father of transactional analysis, used the term "afterburn" to indicate the effect an atypical past event continues to exert on a person's daily schedule, activities and mental state even "after" it is over: to "those occasions when it disturbs normal patterns for an appreciable period, rather than being assimilated into them or excluded from them by repression and other psychological mechanisms". For Berne, afterburn is the flip side of reachback, which
Dagmar Berne visiting Australia on a lecture tour in 1888, and Berne met her during her visit. Berne told her of her difficulties studying medicine in Australia, and Garrett Anderson recounted her own experience while studying, which was very similar to Berne's: she had not been allowed to finish her studies in England and had finished her education at the University of Paris instead. Inspired by Garrett Anderson's similar experience, Berne and her mother approached the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Sir Henry McLaurin, for help in qualifying for her degree, but he refused, asserting that no woman would graduate in medicine while