Das Trauma der Geburt und seine Bedeutung für die Psychoanalyse

Leipzig, Vienna, Zürich: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1924. Cloth-backed boards, corners reinforced; interior in good condition with some discoloration along margins, some pages unopened. Bookplate of University of Southern California School of Medicine with a small shelf label on the spine. First edition. In The Trauma of Birth, Rank introduced new concepts within the psychoanalytic model. While traditional psychoanalysis focused on the subject’s relationship with the father, Rank considered the subject’s pre-language relationship with the mother and the experience of birth. He examined the roles that myth, religion, art, and philosophy played in separation anxiety arguing that this phase preceded the formation of the Oedipus complex, Freud’s foundational psychoanalytic theory, even though this work was dedicated to Freud. To suggest that a “pre-Oedipal” phase could be the primary causal factor in psychoanalysis caused a rift between Rank and Freud resulting in the dissolution of their friendship and collaboration. According to Ellenberger, Rank’s “theory entailed a new system of interpretation of dreams, a new code of universal symbols, a reformulation of the pleasure principle as the wish to return to the womb, and a new interpretation of normal and abnormal sexual life, neuroses, psychosis, and cultural life as a whole. Rank’s work came as a surprise to psychoanalysis.”
Rank (1884–1939) studied philology with a focus on comparative cultural history. Before his controversial text, Rank was one of Freud’s closest confidants. He was one of Freud’s six collaborators in the “ring” that applied psychoanalysis into the study of myth, legends, and art. Rank served as the secretary of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association and co-editor journal Imago. He resigned from all his positions following The Trauma of Birth, and eventually settled in New York where he worked with great success as a therapist and lecturer.