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 between Freud and Rank 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 the two but also their friendships, supporters, rivals, families, travels, and other details about their personal and professional lives. Most interestingly, the letters trace Rank's growing independence, the father-son schism over Rank's ''anti-Oedipal'' heresy, their surprising reconciliation, and the moment when the two parted ways permanently. Presenting a candid picture of how the pioneers of modern psychotherapy behaved with their patients, colleagues, and families, the correspondence between Freud and Rank demonstrates how psychoanalysis grew in relation to early twentieth-century science, art, philosophy, and politics. A rich primary source on psychology, history, and culture, The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank is a cogent and powerful narrative of the history of early psychoanalysis and its two most important personalities.
Preface Introduction 1. The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, 19061910 2. Alfred Adler Departs, 1911 3. Judging Jung, 19121913 4. The Committee, 19131914 5. War, 1914 6. Limbo, 19151916 7. Krakow, 19161918 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, 19251926 19. Willing, Feeling, Living, 19261939 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
""An important exchange of letters. It is very gratifying that it finally has appeared.""
