The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank: Inside Psychoanalysis

"For those well versed in the world of psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis, for those who are students of Freud, and for those who know the historical players in this game, The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank is a wonderful text filled with excellent research and understanding of the growth and the beginning of the demise of Freudian analysis. It is comprehensive, academic, and a must for those are historians of the era, historians of psychoanalysis, or those simply curious about the men who started a revolution in mental health."

"Doctors sometimes like to be perceived as Olympian gods, but these letters remind us how often gods are venal, petty, jealous and spiteful. The excellent book, The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank: Inside Psychoanalysis, focuses on the early career of Otto Rank, as one of Freud's most gifted disciples."

"This edited collection provides a critical balance to other published accounts of these men and the early years of the psychoanalytic movement... should be essential reading for scholars and specialists familiar with the major ideas and players of early psychoanalysis."

"The book offers much more than a compilation of letters but provides in-depth contextual analysis and refreshingly candid and human perspectives on these men in the early days of the important theory."

"The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank is an excellent scholarly resource and makes a substantive contribution by shedding light on Rank and the psychoanalytic movement."

"A compelling story, and one well worth the study required by a careful reading of this book."

"James Lieberman and Robert Kramer are among the most distinguished authorities on Otto Rank. Instead of producing a critical edition of the Freud-Rank letters, as would have been commonplace, they have used the letters to reconstruct the early ‘life’ of the psychoanalytic movement. A gem of a book."

"Publication of the Rank-Freud correspondence in this important book fills a major gap in our knowledge and understanding of the early years of psychoanalysis and of Rank himself. Lieberman and Kramer have nicely interleaved the surviving letters with biographical material on Rank, relevant excerpts from Freud’s letters to others, and description of the historical context, including World War I and the difficult years that followed."

"For anyone at all interested in the history of the psychoanalytic movement, this 1906-25 exchange of letters, translated here from German, between Freud and his henchman―the 28-years-younger Rank―is a delightful treasure trove... Suited to a broad audience, the book is not at all obscure. A source on which readers will continue to draw."

"There is... something eminently refreshing about a straightforward book like The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank: Inside Psychoanalysis."

Sigmund Freud's relationship with Otto Rank was the most constant, close, and significant of his professional life. Freud considered Rank to be the most brilliant of his disciples. The two collaborated on psychoanalytic writing, practice and politics.... This complete collection of the known correspondence between the two brings to life their twenty-year collaboration and their painful break.