Beyond Psychology

Rank's last book, the only one he wrote in English, was published two years after his untimely death in 1939. As his biographer (Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank), I paid it too little heed, as some informants interviewed 25 years ago felt that because the book was not quite finished, it might have been altered in the process of getting it published. I now doubt that. Like other reviewers I find it slow going but rich, deep, sensitive, and brilliant. It requires and deserves re-reading. Unfortunately Dover has let it go out of print, but it seems to be readily available used. Only 1,000 of the hardback were printed; the paperback appeared around 1958 (several different covers were used). Another important Rank book first became available in a full English translation in 1998: Psychology and the Soul: A Study of the Origin, Conceptual Evolution, and Nature of the Soul.

Rank is one of those psychologists/authors that addressed issues most others are too anxious to discuss, hence the reason, in my opinion, he is not as "popular" (in relative terms) as other psychologists. At times, tough to understand, but definitely worth the read!

The odd thing with both Freud & Lacan is that, having promoted the notion of the unconscious in all its vicissitudes & unknowability, they then proceed to map & double-guess it. The result, in short, a 'rule-book' for the unconscious. Rank makes no such mistake ... he prods & weaves, essays & intuits, but never reduces the vagueries to maps, schemas or graphs ... on the contrary, Rank discerns & celebrates the paradoxical character of the godworm. He's not an easy read, but a necessary one.

Rank proves the truth of the thesis that a teacher has done his job when he becomes the student. This tour de force on Freudian psychological thought extends the bounds beyond anything that Freud, his teacher and mentor could have ever imagined himself. Every sentence is lucid and compelling. This book sparkles and speaks mostly to man's fears and irrationalities. But it does not try to exorcise or explan them away. For the first time a theory accepts them both as integral parts of the fabric of the human condition. The treatment of ideologies alone is worth the price of ten books, but there is more, a lot more: on creativity, social organization, human personality, etc. Ten stars!