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Cover image of The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank
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The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank

Inside Psychoanalysis

edited by E. James Lieberman, M.D., and Robert Kramer, Ph.D.

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Sigmund Freud’s relationship with Otto Rank was the most constant, close, and significant of his professional life. Freud considered Rank to be the most brilliant of his disciples. The two collaborated on psychoanalytic writing, practice, and politics; Rank was the managing director of Freud’s publishing house; and after several years helping Freud update his masterpiece, The Interpretation of Dreams, Rank contributed two chapters. His was the only other name ever to be listed on the title page. This complete collection of the known correspondence between the two brings to life their twenty...

Sigmund Freud’s relationship with Otto Rank was the most constant, close, and significant of his professional life. Freud considered Rank to be the most brilliant of his disciples. The two collaborated on psychoanalytic writing, practice, and politics; Rank was the managing director of Freud’s publishing house; and after several years helping Freud update his masterpiece, The Interpretation of Dreams, Rank contributed two chapters. His was the only other name ever to be listed on the title page. This complete collection of the known correspondence between the two brings to life their twenty-year collaboration and their painful break.

The 250 letters compiled by E. James Lieberman and Robert Kramer humanize and dramatize psychoanalytic thinking, practice, and organization from 1906 through 1925. The letters concern not just the work and trenchant contemporaneous observations of Freud and Rank but also their friendships, supporters, rivals, families, travels, and other personal and professional matters. Most interestingly, the letters trace Rank’s growing independence, the father-son schism over Rank’s "anti-Oedipal" heresy, his surprising reconciliation with Freud, and the moment when they parted ways permanently. A candid picture of how the pioneers of modern psychotherapy behaved with their patients, colleagues, and families—and each other—the correspondence between Freud and Rank demonstrates how psychoanalysis developed in relation to early twentieth-century science, art, philosophy, and politics.

A rich primary source on psychiatry, history, and culture, The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank is a cogent and powerful narrative of early psychoanalysis and its two most important personalities.

Reviews

Reviews

Doctors sometimes like to be perceived as Olympian gods, but these letters remind us how often gods are venal, petty, jealous and spiteful. The excellent book, The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank: Inside Psychoanalysis, focuses on the early career of Otto Rank, as one of Freud's most gifted disciples.

This edited collection provides a critical balance to other published accounts of these men and the early years of the psychoanalytic movement... should be essential reading for scholars and specialists familiar with the major ideas and players of early psychoanalysis.

The book offers much more than a compilation of letters but provides in-depth contextual analysis and refreshingly candid and human perspectives on these men in the early days of the important theory.

The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank is an excellent scholarly resource and makes a substantive contribution by shedding light on Rank and the psychoanalytic movement.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
384
ISBN
9781421403540
Illustration Description
4 b&w illus.
Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
1. The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, 1906–1910
2. Alfred Adler Departs, 1911
3. Judging Jung, 1912–1913
4. The Committee, 1913–1914
5. War, 1914
6. Limbo, 1915–1916
7. Krakow, 1916–1918
8

Preface
Introduction
1. The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, 1906–1910
2. Alfred Adler Departs, 1911
3. Judging Jung, 1912–1913
4. The Committee, 1913–1914
5. War, 1914
6. Limbo, 1915–1916
7. Krakow, 1916–1918
8. Active Therapy and Armistice, 1918
9. Eros Meets Thanatos, 1919 and 1920
10. Rising Tension, 1921
11. Favorite Son, January to July 1922
12. Fratricide, August to December 1922
13. Birth of the Mother, January to June 1923
14. Under the Knife, June to December 1923
15. Crisis, January to April 1924
16. New York, May to October 1924
17. About-face, October to December 1924
18. Reunion and Ending, 1925–1926
19. Willing, Feeling, Living, 1926–1939
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Appendix
a. Minor Letters
b. A Precocious Dream Analysis
c. Major Figures in the Freud-Rank Correspondence
d. Family Chart of Sigmund Freud in 1905
e. Otto Rank Family Tree
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Author Bios
Featured Contributor

E. James Lieberman, MD

E. James Lieberman, MD, is professor emeritus of clinical psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University.
Robert Kramer
Featured Contributor

Robert Kramer, Ph.D.

Robert Kramer, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized authority on action learning and consults on leadership development worldwide. He is the editor of A Psychology of Difference: The American Lectures of Otto Rank.