TY - JOUR T1 - Books: <em>A Layman’s Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis</em> JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 178 LP - 178 DO - 10.3399/bjgp17X690341 VL - 67 IS - 657 AU - Oliver D Starr Y1 - 2017/04/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/67/657/178.abstract N2 - Eric Berne First published in the US as The Mind In Action in 1947; first published in the UK by André Deutsch, 1969. Penguin Books Ltd, 1971, PB, 432pp, 978-0140032710As I read this book for the third or fourth time I think, ‘I wish we had geniuses like this in medicine now.’ Perhaps we do. But they certainly don’t write books like this. Eric Berne had only been a doctor for 12 years when this masterpiece was published. He was just 37, the same age I am now.Why is this a masterpiece? Start by taking a look at the contents page: it is breathtakingly simple (‘Chapter Five: Neuroses; Chapter Six: Psychoses …’), but each subsection makes you want to turn to the page right away and start reading:‘Why people act and feel the way they do’, ‘Getting along with people’, and, one of my favourites, ‘What is intuition?’ Berne writes so candidly … ER -