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Otto Rank remains one of the most talented, and least appreciated, among Freud's followers. Originally he came to Freud as a young student, and Freud encouraged him in every possible way; Rank became an intimate help-mate, and rewarded Freud's confidence by becoming prolific. It was Rank who was assigned the task of keeping the records of the proceedings of the group around Freud in Vienna, and therefore Rank's note taking became the basis for today's four-volume set of the Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. After serving as an editor of a military publication during World War I, Rank returned to Vienna and became a practicing analyst. Other of Freud's disciples were naturally jealous of Rank's unique status. A careful look at the famous 1922 group photograph of Freud and his so-called secret committee, selected to forward “the cause,” shows that Rank is the only one, standing immediately behind Freud's chair, whose eyes are looking in exactly the same direction as the master's.
After Freud fell ill of cancer of the jaw in 1923, Rank's rivals had their opening. Rank prepared himself to assume Freud's position, and then Freud rallied and went on to live until 1939. Freud's initial illness, however, became a decisive turning point in the relation between the two men. Freud was naturally none too pleased to read any newspaper articles about Rank's taking over as leader of the “movement.” Rank's little 1923 book on the birth trauma was intimately involved in his complex emotional relation to the founder of psychoanalysis. The text, full of original ideas and yet expressed loyally within Freud's framework, was dedicated to Freud, then thought to be in grave physical danger. Freud's initial reaction to the book was positive, but others in Freud's circle, such as Ernest Jones in London and Karl Abraham in Berlin, made things harder as they sniffed signs of psychoanalytic heresy in Rank's innovations. Freud always resented how Jones and Abraham had made things eve