orig. Otto Rosenfeld
born April 22, 1884, Vienna, Austria
died Oct. 31, 1939, New York, N.Y., U.S.
Austrian psychologist.
A protégé of Sigmund Freud , Rank's early books, including The Artist (1907) and The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (1909), extended psychoanalytic theory to explain the significance of myths. He edited the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (191224). The publication of The Trauma of Birth (1924), which was seen to undermine the principles of psychoanalysis by arguing that the basis of anxiety neurosis is psychological trauma occurring during birth, led to his expulsion from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Rank settled in New York City in 1936, and his later work focused on the will as the guiding force in personality development.