Eric Berne (May 10, 1910 – July 15, 1970) was a Canadian-born psychiatrist who 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 and Carl Jung but was distinctly different.

[4] From 1940 to 1943 he was employed as a psychiatrist in a sanitarium in Connecticut, and concurrently as a clinical assistant in psychiatry at Mt Sinai Hospital in New York.

[4] In 1943, during World War II, Berne joined the United States Army Medical Corps and served as a psychiatrist.

The house dates back to 1888, originally built for surveyor Davenport Bromfield while he mapped the streets of Carmel City.

It is one of the oldest structures in town, now listed on the Carmel Inventory Of Historic Resources as the "Eric Berne House.

"[5][6][7] From 1949 to 1964, Berne had a private practices in both Carmel and San Francisco and kept up a demanding pace of research, teaching in addition.

Zion Hospital, San Francisco, and simultaneously began serving as a Consultant to the Surgeon General of the US Army.

In 1951, he accepted a position of Adjunct and Attending Psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration and Mental Hygiene Clinic, San Francisco.

[1] Berne mapped interpersonal relationships to three ego-states of the individuals involved: the Parent, Adult, and Child state.

With the publication of this paper in the 1958 issue of the American Journal of Psychotherapy, Berne's new method of diagnosis and treatment, transactional analysis, became a permanent part of the psychotherapeutic literature.

[8] His seminar group from the 1950s developed the term transactional analysis (TA) to describe therapies based on his work.

Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships is a bestselling 1964 book by Berne that has sold more than five million copies.

On the contrary, the "games people play" usually pay all of the players off, even those who ostensibly are the losers, since they are about psychic equilibrium or promoting adopted self-damaging social roles instead of rational benefits.

These payoffs are not consciously sought by the players but they are leading to the ultimate unconscious life script of each as set by their parental family interactions and favored emotions.

Berne gave these games memorable titles such as "Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch", "Wooden Leg", "Why Don't You... / Yes, But...", and "Let's You and Him Fight".