Biography of otto rank

Otto Rank, cropped from the larger group photograph shown below.
Source: Library of Congress Prints and Images via Wikimedia
Commons (public domain).

Otto Rank (1884-1939) was the first lay analyst, or non medically-qualified member, of the pioneering Vienna Psychoanalytic (Psa.) Society.

Alfred Adler (1870-1937) introduced him to the group in 1906, and he likely attended one or more meetings of the nascent Wednesday Psychological Society, (Jones 1955, "Emergence from Isolation"). Rank appears to have been from an under-privileged background, and to have received much encouragement from Freud to complete his education.

Otto rank psychology

Rank attended the University of Vienna where, in 1911, he presented a pioneering psycho-literary study of the Lohengrin Saga, an opera with medieval themes by Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Previously Freud had also steered Rank to the successful publication of a book, Der K¨nstler (The Artist), in 1906-07.

Freud held Rank in such high esteem that he appointed