Word: bergler
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Manhattan's Dr. Edmund Bergler, 60, has a distinction unique even for a psychiatrist : over the past 30 years he has examined or treated nearly 1,000 male homosexuals. From this long and intimate professional voyage into a strange world, he has put down some surprising conclusions in a book, published last week, titled 1,000 Homosexuals (Pageant Books; $4.95). Says Psychoanalyst Bergler: ¶ The homosexual is a glutton for punishment and is surely unhappy-consciously or unconsciously...
Pleasure from Displeasure. Despite all the washroom jokes, most of Dr. Bergler's homosexuals look and act perfectly masculine, and many are married. Then how did they get that way? Answers Bergler: it all traces back to the nursery...
Does this mean that, as in popular fiction, the parents are guilty? Emphatically not, says Bergler. "No parent-not even the parent who directed the affairs of the nursery foolishly-has the power to induce neurosis in his children." (But many a parent wants to assume the blame, because every parent also has some masochism...
Indeed, the parent's worst mistake may have been his softness. Every person craves some punishment; if he cannot get it at home, he goes to extremes to seek it. As Bergler told one homosexual patient, who was rarely spanked as a child: "You had to work hard to get your beatings at home. The generations brought up in the era of 'progressive education' faced the same problem...
Misery Concentrated. The seed of self-punishment flowers in the conspiratorial world of the homosexual. Its life, as one Bergler patient related, is "misery concentrated, guilt heightened, depression the order of the day." Male homosexuals are pathologically jealous and "unfaithful." Some have relations with more than 100 males a year. Few relationships last more than several weeks; the most common type is the "one-night stand" or the five-minute meeting in a public park or even a comfort station. With contacts so casual, venereal disease runs wild. (One survey showed that almost 10% of male homosexuals are carriers...