Chronology of Rank’s life and work

Abstract Inventor of relationship therapy, and proponent of the creative will, Rank was co-leader with Freud of the psychoanalytic movement. But due to Freud’s “boiling rage” at him for publishing The Trauma of Birth—which attempted, unsuccessfully, to introduce the powerful will of mothers into psychoanalysis—Rank left Vienna in 1926, moving to Paris with his family. Making trips frequently to America to lecture on relationship therapy and the creative will at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work, Rank collaborated with Jessie Taft and Virginia Robinson to promote self-leadership for social workers and their clients, mostly female. As the first existential-humanistic psychotherapist, Rank had a lasting influence on Carl Rogers and Rollo May. Rank’s most important works are The Myth of the Birth of the Hero; The Double; The Trauma of Birth; Will Therapy; Truth and Reality; Psychology and the Soul; Art and Artist; Beyond Psychology; and A Psychology of Difference.