Otto Rank

Otto Rank (born April 22, 1884, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now in Austria]—died October 31, 1939, New York City, New York, U.S.) was an Austrian psychologist who extended psychoanalytic theory to the study of legend, myth, art, and creativity and who suggested that the basis of anxiety neurosis is a psychological trauma occurring during the birth of the individual.

Rank came from a poor family and attended trade school, working in a machine shop while trying to write at night. His reading of Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams inspired him to write Der Künstler (1907; “The Artist”), an attempt to explain art by using psychoanalytic principles. This work brought him to the attention of Freud, who helped arrange his entry to the University of Vienna, from which he received his doctorate in philosophy in 1912. While studying at the university, he legally adopted his pen name of Otto Rank and published two more works, Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden (1909; The Myth of the Birth of the Hero) and Das Inzest-Motiv in Dichtung und Sage (1912; “The Incest Motif in Poetry and Saga”), in which he attempted to show how the Oedipus complex supplies abundant themes for poetry and myth.

Rank served as secretary to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and as editor of its minutes, and from 1912 to 1924 he edited the Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse (“International Journal of Psychoanalysis”). In 1919 he founded a publishing house devoted to the publication of psychoanalytic works and directed it until 1924.

Publication of Das Trauma der Geburt und seine Bedeutung für die Psychoanalyse (1924; The Trauma of Birth) caused Rank’s break with Freud and other members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which expelled him from its membership. The book, which argued that the transition from the womb to the outside world causes tremendous anxiety in the infant that may persist as anxiety neurosis into adulthood, was seen by many members of the Viennese society as conflicting with the concepts of psychoanalysis. Following the break, which became complete in the mid-1920s, Rank taught and practiced in the United States and Europe (chiefly Paris) for about 10 years, settling in New York City in 1936.

During the 1930s Rank developed a concept of the will as the guiding force in personality development. The will could be a positive force for controlling and using a person’s instinctual drives, which were seen by Freud as the motivating factors in human behaviour. Thus, in Rank’s view, resistance by a patient during psychoanalysis was a manifestation of this will and not inherently a negative factor; instead of wearing down such resistance, as a Freudian analyst would attempt, Rank would use it to direct self-discovery and development.

Rank’s attempt to reduce all of psychology to a monolithic system based on the birth trauma is viewed as a serious departure from a scientific orientation. But his emphasis on personal growth and self-actualization and his application of psychoanalytic theory to the interpretation of art and myth have remained influential.