Otto Rank

Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, and philosopher. Born in Vienna, he became one of Sigmund Freud's closest collaborators, served as secretary of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, and edited leading psychoanalytic journals while publishing studies of myth and creativity. His book The Trauma of Birth (1924) proposed that the anxiety of separation at birth precedes the Oedipus complex, coined the term "pre-Oedipal," and triggered a decisive break with Freud's father-centered developmental theory. Rank established psychotherapy practices in Paris and New York, where he promoted a relationship-based way of being that called for the therapist to show authenticity, empathy and unconditional respect for the client. He influenced existential, interpersonal and humanistic therapy, social work, and action learning, and his ideas on creativity and the double continue to inform psychological and cultural criticism to the present.