Otto Rank

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Otto Rank (standing left) and other psychoanalysts (1922)

Otto Rank (actually Rosenfeld ; born April 22, 1884 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † October 31, 1939 in New York City ) was an Austrian psychoanalyst .

Life

Otto Rank, son of the Jewish craftsman Simon Rosenfeld, studied 1,908 German and classical philology at the University of Vienna , in 1912 with the work The Lohengrin legend Dr. phil. PhD and dealt with comparative cultural history and mythology . He was one of Sigmund Freud's closest confidants and a promoter of psychoanalysis. Rank became secretary of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association and was co-editor of the international journal Imago from 1912 to 1924 . In 1919 he founded the International Psychoanalytical Publishing House in Vienna , which he directed until 1924. His main work The Trauma of Childbirth and its Significance for Psychoanalysis (1924) led to the alienation of Freud. Rank went to Paris in 1926 and to the USA in 1933; he settled in 1936 as a psychotherapist in New York. Otto Rank had been married to the child analyst Beata Minzer since 1918 ; they had a daughter. The marriage ended in divorce in 1934. In the 1930s he maintained an intense relationship with the writer Anaïs Nin , which was also reflected in her diaries.

Rank founded the Casework School, which limited therapy in time.

plant

In his most famous work The trauma of birth from 1924 developed Rank the concept of a universal, psychological birth trauma . Rank dealt with the psychological consequences of childbirth and also with considerations about the prenatal experience of the fetus. He assumed that every birth leads to an overwhelming fear of the fetus. He suspected that this trauma could be the trigger for numerous later fears, including the fear of the female genitals, and that the subject of birth can be demonstrated in dreams, symbols, myths and works of art. Rank attributed some fears to memories of the womb, such as the fear of being alone in a dark room. He further assumed that at least the late prenatal period can be remembered in certain aspects. Thus Rank had developed a prenatal psychology that he applied to cultural aspects. For example, he understood the Christian notions of hell to be the consequences of the “intrauterine situation with negative signs”.

Collaboration and break with Freud

In the early days of psychoanalysis, there were arguments about the importance of the prenatal period and the psychological effects of childbirth. Freud had dealt unsystematically with the topics of birth and prenatal psychology and was influenced by his student Otto Rank. Freud himself assumed that childbirth was the first fearful experience in life and also assumed that the psyche already existed prenatally:

“I learned to appreciate the importance of fantasies and unconscious thoughts about life in the womb only late. They contain both the explanation of the strange fears of so many people of being buried alive, as well as the deepest unconscious justification of the belief in an afterlife, which is only the projection into the future of this uncanny life before birth. Incidentally, the act of childbirth is the first experience of fear and thus the source and model of the fear affect. ” In a letter dated October 13, 1911, he spoke to CG Jung on pre- and perinatal psychological issues.

On his 67th birthday on May 6, 1923, Rank presented Freud with the manuscript for his work "The trauma of childbirth and its significance for psychoanalysis". At the time, Rank was a member of the Secret Committee made up of his most trusted associates. In his book, Rank outlined the assumption that childbirth leads to an overwhelming experience of fear in the baby, that the female genitals can become the starting point for fundamental fears and that the birth theme can be found in dreams, symbols, myths and works of art. At first, Freud seems to have received Rank's insights with interest and cautiously. In relation to the formation of theories, the book Ranks questioned the central role of castration anxiety for Freud and thus his conception of the development of the superego and the Oedipus complex as the core complex of neurosis.

In the course of these personal and theoretical differences, there was a break between Freud and Rank in the mid-1920s. In his work Inhibition, Symptom and Fear from 1926, Freud writes that childbirth is “the first human experience of fear”, but that this remains psychologically without relevant consequences, because “the birth is subjectively not experienced as a separation from the mother, since this is The object is completely unknown to the narcissistic fetus. ”As a result, assumptions about the fetal psyche and birth faded into the background in the development of psychoanalysis.

Aftermath

Otto Rank played a role in the establishment of humanistic psychology. He introduced the “will” of the human being as an integrating force of a holistic personality. The “verbalization” as the expression of feelings, as a way to “become conscious” in the experiential understanding (as opposed to the “awareness” in the cognitive understanding), as essential for the therapeutic benefit, was coined by Rank in 1929. The verbalization and the experiential understanding took hold of C Rogers later on in his conception of psychotherapy, e.g. B. in his concepts of "active listening" and "empathic understanding".

The social anthropologist Ernest Becker names Rank's work as a major influence on his book The Denial of Death .

Works (selection)

  • The artist. Approaches to a sexual psychology. Hugo Heller , Vienna 1907; extended 2nd and 3rd edition 1918.
  • The myth of the birth of the hero. Attempt at a psychological interpretation of myths. Deuticke, Leipzig 1909; 2nd, significantly expanded edition 1922; Reprint of the 2nd edition: Turia and Kant, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85132-498-3 .
  • The Lohengrin legend. A contribution to their motif design and interpretation. Deuticke, Leipzig 1911.
  • The incest motif in poetry and legend. Basics of a psychology of poetic creation. Deuticke, Leipzig 1912.
  • with Hanns Sachs : The importance of psychoanalysis for the humanities. Bergmann, Wiesbaden 1913.
  • Psychoanalytic contributions to research into myths. International Psychoanalytical Library, Leipzig 1919; 2nd, modified edition. International Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig 1924.
  • The Don Juan figure. International Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig 1924.
  • The trauma of childbirth and its significance for psychoanalysis. International Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig 1924; Reprint: Psychosocial, Gießen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89806-703-4 .
  • with Sándor Ferenczi : Developmental Goals of Psychoanalysis. On the interrelationship between theory and practice. International Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig 1924; Reprint: Turia and Kant, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85132-493-8 .
  • The lookalike. A psychoanalytic study. Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig 1925; Reprint: Turia & Kant, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-85132-062-X .
  • Technique of psychoanalysis. 3 volumes. Deuticke, Leipzig 1926–1931; Reprint: Psychosocial, Gießen 2006.
  • Upbringing and worldview. A Critique of Psychological Educational Ideology. Reinhardt, Munich 1933.
  • Dream and poetry. Dream and myth. Two unknown texts from Sigmund Freud's “Interpretation of Dreams”. Edited by Lydia Marinelli. Turia + Kant, Vienna 1995, ISBN 978-3-85132-070-1 .
  • A Psychology of Difference. The American Lectures. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1996, ISBN 0-691-04470-8 .
  • Art and artist. Studies on the genesis and development of the creative urge. First publication of the German original manuscript from 1932. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-89806-023-3 .

literature

  • Klaus Hölzer: Mental productivity in the life and work of depth psychological researchers (Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Otto Rank and Josef Rattner). Publishing house for depth psychology, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-028760-2 .
  • Ludwig Janus (ed.): The rediscovery of Otto Rank for psychoanalysis. Psychosocial, Giessen 1998, ISBN 3-932133-54-4 .
  • Marina Leitner: Freud, Rank, and the Consequences. A key conflict for psychoanalysis. Turia + Kant, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-85132-187-1 .
  • E. James Lieberman: Otto Rank. Life and work. Psychosocial, Giessen 1997, ISBN 3-932133-13-7 .
  • E. James Lieberman, Robert Kramer (Eds.): Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank. Their relationship in the mirror of the correspondence 1906–1925. Psychosocial, Giessen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8379-2293-6 .
  • Josef Rattner : Otto Rank . In: Classics of Psychoanalysis . 2nd edition Beltz / Psychologie Verlags Union, Weinheim 1995, ISBN 3-621-27285-2 . (First edition 1990 and T. Klassiker der Tiefenpsychologie ), pp. 135–163.
  • Paul Roazen : Otto Rank. Sons and fathers. In: Ders .: Sigmund Freud and his circle. Psychosozial, Giessen 1997, ISBN 3-930096-77-3 , pp. 379-404.
  • Sonia Wachstein:  Rank Otto. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 8, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 415 f. (Direct links on p. 415 , p. 416 ).
  • Anton Zottl: Otto Rank. The life's work of a dissident psychoanalysis. Kindler, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-463-02229-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rank-Minzer (Munzer), Beata (1886-1961) , at encyclopedia.com
  2. ↑ Otto Rank: The trauma of childbirth and its significance for psychoanalysis. 1924. (Reprint: Frankfurt 1988, p. 61)
  3. ↑ Otto Rank: The trauma of childbirth and its significance for psychoanalysis. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 98.
  4. ↑ Otto Rank: The trauma of childbirth and its significance for psychoanalysis. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 142.
  5. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1900), “Die Traumdeutung”, pp. 405 f., FN 5. This footnote was added by Freud in a new edition of the 1909 dream interpretation.
  6. ↑ Freud, Sigmund; Jung, Carl Gustav (1974). Sigmund Freud, CG Jung: Correspondence. Edited by William McGuire et al. Wolfgang Sauerländer. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer. P. 495 f.
  7. ^ Kramer, Robert (1999). Insight and Blindness: On the Topicality of Otto Rank. In Psyche, 53, pp. 158-200 (p. 158). Meyer, Guido (2004). Birth, Fear, Death, and the Desire for the Womb: History of the Primordial Themes in Psychoanalysis. Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel. P. 64.
  8. ^ Graber, Gustav Hans (1972). New contributions to the teaching and practice of psychotherapy: Core problems of peri- and prenatal depth psychology. Munich: Goldmann, p. 50 ff .; Janus, Ludwig (1993). Psychoanalysis of prenatal lifetime and childbirth. Centaurus: Pfaffenweiler. P. 23.
  9. ↑ Janus, Ludwig (1993). Psychoanalysis of prenatal lifetime and childbirth. Centaurus: Pfaffenweiler. P. 23 ff .; Meyer, Guido (2004). Birth, Fear, Death, and the Desire for the Womb: History of the Primordial Themes in Psychoanalysis. Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel. P. 71 ff.
  10. ^ Kramer, Robert (1999). Insight and Blindness: On the Topicality of Otto Rank. In Psyche, 53, pp. 158-200 (pp. 164 ff).
  11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1900), "The Interpretation of Dreams", pp. 405 f., FN 5.
  12. ↑ Helmut Quittmann (1985). 6.3. Excursus: Influence of Otto Rank on Carl Rogers ". In: ders. Humanistic Psychology. Central Concepts and Philosophical Background. Göttingen. S 141-149. Here 141.
  13. ↑ Helmut Quittmann (1985). Humanistic psychology. Central concepts and philosophical background. Goettingen. P. 141
  14. ^ Ernest Becker: The Denial of Death . Profile Books Ltd.
personal data
SURNAME Rank, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rosenfeld, Otto (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian psychoanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 31, 1939
Place of death New York City