Otto Rank – författare

A leading disciple and confidant of Freud, Otto Rank revolutionized the field of psychoanalytic theory in The Trauma of Birth (1924). In this book, Rank proposed that the child''s pre-Oedipal relationship to the mother was the prototype of the therapeutic relationship between analyst and patient. Although Rank is now widely acknowledged as the most important precursor of humanistic and existential psychotherapy--influencing such well-known writers as Carl Rogers, Rollo May, and Ernest Becker--Rank''s knotty prose has long frustrated readers. In this volume of Rank''s lectures, Robert Kramer has brought together for the first time the innovator''s clearest explanations of his most influential theories. The lectures were delivered in English to receptive audiences of social workers, therapists, and clinical psychologists throughout the United States from 1924 to 1938, the year before Rank''s untimely death. The topics covered include separation and individuation, projection and identification, love and will, relationship therapy, and neurosis as a failure in creativity. The lectures reveal that Rank, much maligned by orthodox analysts, invented the modern object-relations approach to psychotherapy in the 1920s. In his introduction, based on private correspondence between Rank, Freud, and others in the inner circle, Robert Kramer tells the full story of why Rank parted ways with Freud. The collection of lectures constitutes a "readable Rank," filled with insights still relevant today, for those interested in the humanistic, existential, or object- relational aspects of psychotherapy, or in the development of the psychoanalytic movement.

In Quest of the Hero makes available for a new generation of readers two key works on hero myths: Otto Rank''s Myth of the Birth of the Hero and the central section of Lord Raglan''s The Hero. Amplifying these is Alan Dundes''s fascinating contemporary inquiry, "The Hero Pattern and the Life of Jesus." Examined here are the patterns found in the lore surrounding historical or legendary figures like Gilgamesh, Moses, David, Oedipus, Odysseus, Perseus, Heracles, Aeneas, Romulus, Siegfried, Lohengrin, Arthur, and Buddha. Rank''s monograph remains the classic application of Freudian theory to hero myths. In The Hero the noted English ethnologist Raglan singles out the myth-ritualist pattern in James Frazer''s many-sided Golden Bough and applies that pattern to hero myths. Dundes, the eminent folklorist at the University of California at Berkeley, applies the theories of Rank, Raglan, and others to the case of Jesus. In his introduction to this selection from Rank, Raglan, and Dundes, Robert Segal, author of the major study of Joseph Campbell, charts the history of theorizing about hero myths and compares the approaches of Rank, Raglan, Dundes, and Campbell.

Originally published in 1924, this study of the Don Juan legend is a powerful interpretation of one of the most popular themes in Western culture. Also valuable for the insights it offers into Rank''s thought immediately before his break with Freud, the book has not been available in English until now. Rank''s study draws on psychoanalysis, literature, history, and anthropology to suggest some psychological mechanisms that operate both within the principal characters of the legend and within the audience or reader.Originally published in 1975.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.