I'll start by letting Bergler speak for himself (1961, p. 31-2):

Now being the object of "self-aggression" is painful and humiliating, to say the least. Every human being lives on the basis of the "pleasure principle." What pleasure, if any, can be derived from hitting oneself? Obviously none, unless one makes a pleasure out of displeasure. That is exactly what the future "psychic masochist" does.

The only pleasure one can derive from displeasure is to make pleasure out of displeasure ("psychic masochism").

. . .

Nobody can go through the protracted helplessness of childhood without acquiring some traces of this psychic poison. Psychic masochism is a universal human trait; to deny it is just as naive as to deny that every human being possesses an organ called a heart.

The genius of the infant, baby, small child solved one of the most complex problems of the psychic economy. It created the "genetic picture" in psychic masochism, dealt with in part by Freud. Unfortunately the process does not stop at that point.

The next development simply confirms the already established trouble. The aggression of the child is not directed against indifferent people; its targets are parents and their representatives, "people with a halo." Why exactly parents? They are "just around." . . . They invoke the "triad of retribution": punishment, moral reproach, guilt.

The problem of guilt is of decisive consequence. It acquires a double representation: mother (father) and the inner conscience (superego).

The origin of guilt dates from the earliest phase of development when the in expressible fury of frustration rebounds against the ego. The first results of this ricochet, a feeling of helplessness and unease and subsequent depression, are the pre-stages of guilt.

It is against the background of the inescapable accumulation of this rebounding aggression that we must view the child's pathetic attempts to cope with external troubles. His first inner expedient for dealing with the outer world was described by Freud as the "ego ideal."

One could only wish that Freud were as concise. In a few short paragraphs Bergler has posited the 'reason why' both the superego and the ego ideal are formed and, in the process, has added to our understanding by adding the concept of psychic masochism.

But Bergler has another important point to make about the ego ideal. It is a point we will address again in this chapter. Bergler writes (ibid p. 33)

The ego ideal, therefore, is composed of the child's original and indestructible megalomania (later attenuated to narcissism and self-love) amalgamated with internalized parental prohibitions. In its introjected sectors, however, the ego ideal is not an exact copy of the parents. The precise formulation is "parents as the child perceived them." Since a good deal of the child's aggression was projected on the parents their images have already been colored and altered by a patina of this projected aggression.

Footnote 43. In the list of coping (defense) mechanisms at the end of this chapter, this mechanism is "turning against the self."

Footnote 44. An earlier variant of this concept was called "moral masochism" (cf. Fenichel, 1945; Freud S,. 1924/1959).

Footnote 45. Introjection as a coping (defense) mechanism is in our list at the end of this chapter.

The narcissistic sector, the larger ingredient of the mixture, has the purpose of protecting the ego from humiliation and maintaining the needed assurance of all-power. It contains the child's braggadocio, his boasting of what he can do, his grandiose promises for the future, his "dreams of glory," amusing to an adult sense of reality but utterly serious to the child. These high-pitched aims, created and advertised in childhood, later become one of the most fertile sources of self-torture.

Now before we turn to Bergler's second important contribution (I do not mean thereby that Bergler's only contributions to theory are the two presented here) I want to highlight some issues in the two quotes.

First, note that the development as Bergler lays it out is based on the parental inhibition of the child's aggression. Since many people reading this book will have previously steeped themselves in Reich's contention that the issue is childhood sexuality, the difference needs to be emphasized that it is the natural aggressive drive of the child that is prohibited, not his sexuality.

The second, and more salient, issue is Bergler's emphasis on the child's megalomania and its time-transformation into narcissism. Narcissism is a crucial issue in all of therapy (Morrison, 1986) and is a psychological component not dealt with at all, in any direct sense, by body-based psychotherapy. Narcissism is largely ignored by Reich and was totally ignored, to his shame, by Lowen.

Footnote 46. In this, Lowen (1958) comes closer to the mark. Where Reich put all the onus on sexuality, Lowen has placed all the onus on aggression.

Footnote 47. Reich's postulation of a phallic narcissistic character is nearly the whole of his interest in the subject. Phallic narcissism is one of five recognized narcissistic characters: (1) primary narcissism, (2) secondary narcissism, (3) pathological narcissism (Kernberg, 1975), (4) phallic narcissism, and (5) Kohutian narcissism.

Lowen, when the psychological world passed him by as it started increasingly to focus on narcissism, tried to play catch-up by publishing a book entitled Narcissism (1983).

Finally I should like to emphasize that the over-riding emotion, as it is recognized by the person and therefore is a feeling, is guilt. It is not that aggression is repressed, it is simply that the aggression is turned against the self giving rise to an intra-punitive superego and ego ideal. The claim put forth both by Reich and Lowen that aggression is "repressed" is not supported.

At this point I want to draw a distinction that Bergler did not draw but which, in my opinion, is closer to the observed facts.

Guilt, as such, is a fairly mature emotion. Its predecessor is shame. Guilt, as formal feeling, does not arise until somewhere about the age of seven; prior to that time it is shame (Morrison, 1989). The distinction is observed by parents when they confront young children with "aren't you ashamed of yourself?" or "you should be ashamed of yourself." It sounds foreign to the ear to confront a young child with "don't you feel guilty?" A child who has urinated in his bed or failed to get to the toilet in time experiences shame at his act, he does not feel guilty about it.

Footnote 48. The book is, frankly, an embarrassment to the whole field of body-based psychotherapy. By the time Lowen wrote it he had already published eight other books. Since he had exhaustively analyzed character in terms of the body in his first book, to suddenly find 'oh, by the way, there is also narcissism in the body' can only work to discredit the whole field.

Footnote 49. (p. 2) "As guilt invites confession and forgiveness (ref.), shame generates concealment out of a fear rendering the self unacceptable (ref.)." However for a different view, and one tying both shame and guile to a genetic variable called field-independence and field-dependence, see Lewis, 1990.

In explaining injustice collecting, a component of psychic masochism, again I will let Bergler (1960, pp 47-8) present the case:

Nobody, as I have said, is entirely uninfluenced by the unconscious pleasure-in-displeasure pattern. But there are some people who unconsciously feel at home in one, and exclusively in that one situation: behind the eight-ball. These are the confirmed psychic masochists. Their daily mental diet is incomplete unless it has included an offense against them, a humiliation, an affront they have sustained. Invariably, they have been "innocent victims" in these encounters with unaccountably "malicious" people. These psychic masochists expend a great deal of productive energy in achieving that externally unproductive aim. So attuned to rejection and humiliation are these "injustice collectors" that they either provoke a rebuff or misuse a situation to attain their purpose. A merciful fate permits them to "overlook" their own initial provocation or misuse of circumstances. As they see it, the "situation" begins when their imaginary opponent "unwarrantedly" attacks them with good conscience, righteous indignation and "justified" fury, they fight back ostensibly in the cause of self-defense. Inevitably, they meet defeat, after which the revel in self-pity. Defeat is inevitable in every argument every battle, for the psychic masochist unconsciously and unknowingly has been careful enough to choose an opponent stronger than himself, or cunning enough to maneuver himself into an untenable situation.

Footnote 50. Bergler is well worth reading. I recommend The Basic Neurosis which you can find in the reference list. If the material from Freud which Bergler employs liberally is beyond your knowledge, there is an excellent introductory book to Freud: Hall, C. (1955). A primer of Freudian psychology,. New York: Signet. Unfortunately this book is now out of print but can be easily acquired on the used book market.

To people who found the generalization on self-damaging tendencies difficult to accept, this outline of psychic masochism in action undoubtedly appears more than incredible. It takes time, perhaps, to adjust to the presentation of so "unrealistic" a state of affairs, but perhaps a reminder will help: Only consciously is every person, his own friend and well-wisher.

Unconsciously, the story reads differently. If a person unconsciously runs after the proverbial kick in the jaw, he is sure to get it—and more often than he bargained to.

Why did I include this theorist and these two ideas here? Simply because I find it presented so frequently in my therapy practice that I can well accept Bergler's claim that it is endemic. It deserves to be presented and emphasized if I am to present a model for you to use in your cognitive work along side the body work.

C. The Tyranny Of The Should, The Contribution Of Karen Horney

Karen Horney was analyzed by Alfred Adler and there is a close similarity between her theory and that of Adler. Horney was one of the "neo-Freudians" along with, notably, H. S. Sullivan, Clara Thompson, and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. The neo-Freudians based their approach not on a drive model as Freud did, but on an interpersonal model.

There is much to recommend Horney, and her writing is deserving of much more space than it is accorded here. The issue addressed here, the tyranny of the should, is drawn from one book (1950) where the issue forms a chapter title.

Footnote 51. Horney, in turn, analyzed Albert Ellis. Ellis is recognized along with A. Beck as founders of the now most prevalent form of evidence based therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Footnote 52. This is another book that I recommend to your purchase.

If legally I could I would include here the full 22 pages of this chapter. Instead I have clipped and cut, even omitting the ellipses. Please understand that what follows is my butchering, for space reasons, of what Horney actually wrote. For those of my readers whose curiosity is piqued, the book is readily available in trade paperback and is well worth purchasing.

Neurotic claims are concerned with the world outside as the person asserts the rights to which his uniqueness entitles him. His feelings allow him to live in a world of fiction. And whenever he falls short of being his idealized self, his claims enable him to make factors outside himself responsible. The inner dictates comprise all that the neurotic should be able to do, to be, to feel, to know and taboos on how and what he should not be. He should be the utmost of honesty, generosity, courage, endure everything, like everybody, love his parents, his wife, or, he should not be attached to anything or anybody, nothing should matter to him, he should never feel hurt. He should be spontaneous; he should always control his feelings. He should know, understand, and foresee everything. He should be able to solve every problem of his own, or of others. He should be able to overcome every difficulty.

But to speak of too high demands on self does not reveal the peculiar characteristics of inner dictates.