The Bearing of Rank's Discovery on Medicine

There is irony in the fact that the publication of Freud's complete works coincides with Rank's discovery that necessitates a radical revision in the theory and technique of psychoanalysis.1 By revealing the fundamental importance of the mother attachment in every human life Rank has advanced the understanding of the deepest psychobiological levels in man. Building on the foundation laid by Freud, and afterwards strengthened by Adler, Jung and Stekel, Rank has developed a theory and technique that avoid the onesided emphasis of Freud on the sexual and the historical, of Jung on the anagogic and phylogenetic, of Adler on power, and of Stekel on the current conflicts. By incorporating and carrying an important step further the truths seen by these pioneers, Rank has superseded Freud's psychoanalysis by a biologically based, genetic psychological theory, and by a technique which avoids the necessity for a prolonged historical investigation with a slow removal of amnesia in the search for hidden complexes and accidental traumas. Rank makes his work essentially a reëducation of the ego in order to adapt it to the actual conditions of the person's sexual and social life.

Many years ago Freud came near to making Rank's discovery by recognizing the importance of psychic traumas as factors in psychical and physical symptoms. These accidental traumas were the chief factor to be emphasized when Freud first formulated his new insight into the unconscious causes of psychoneurotic conditions, which at that time he used to remove by the hypnotic recovery of painful memories of traumatic events. But, presumably due to his own repression, Freud was only able to see the accidental traumas. Further observations led Freud to see that shocking seductions of children in some cases failed to produce neurotic results, and that hysterical cases existed without any history of such accidental traumatic events. Thus Freud was led to abandon his early trauma