Otto Rank was born on April 22, 1884 in Vienna. When he was 21, Rank met Sigmund Freud, after Freud had read a manuscript written by Rank. Freud subsequently appointed Rank to act as secretary of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1906. The two became friends and were close confidants, with Rank acting as Freud’s assistant for nearly two decades. Freud encouraged Rank to study at the University of Vienna, where Rank earned his PhD in 1912.
Rank and Freud worked together to expand Freud’s theories, and Rank was a co-founder of the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1910. Rank was a prolific psychoanalytic writer, second only to Freud, and served as the resident expert on philosophy and literature in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.
Rank visited the United States in 1924, the same year that he published The Trauma of Birth, in which Rank revealed his claim that neurosis resulted from the trauma an infant experiences at being separated from the mother. Rank’s theories began to depart from Freud’s, and traditional Freudians distanced themselves from Rank. Rank used the term psychotherapy, rather than Freud’s psychoanalysis, and he focused on choices, responsibilities, conscious experiences, and the present, instead of drives, determinism, the unconscious, and the past. Freud and Rank’s relationship was severed in 1926.