And the difference in wages between male and female cops
Otto Rank, one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues, was an Austrian psychologist that sought to challenge how we think about rationality and the weight it really takes on human behavior and decision-making. An author of multiple books, he argued quite radical positions that caused a significant break from his colleagues, including that the trauma one experiences during birth is the root of human suffering. Another prolific theory that Rank issued is that humans actually behave quite irrationally and retrospectively use rational language to explain their behavior. Curious to know more? Click on.
Otto Rank, born in 1884 in Vienna, was born into a low-income Jewish family. His family life was repressive, indifferent, and even, hopeless by many accounts. The picture depicts Vienna's Jewish Quarter in the 1880s.
Rank’s fascination with theater and the arts led him to a vast intellectual world that he immersed himself in to escape the reality of his own family. Pictured is a drawing of Vienna's Hofburg Theater in 1889.
In his early twenties, Rank penned a book titled ‘The Artist,’ a book which impressed Freud (pictured) so much that he took Rank under his wing, in many ways becoming the former’s “surrogate father.”
For two decades, Rank worked faithfully under Freud’s guidance, Rank regularly explored psychoanalytic theory as it related to artistic realms. Yet all came to a break in 1924.
Rank published ‘The Trauma of Birth,’ likely one of his best-known theories, in which he argues that much of an individual’s anxiety and suffering is rooted in the traumas experienced at birth.
Initially, Freud supported Rank’s ideas on the matter but soon understood the argument went against his central theory of the Oedipus complex as the supreme and central causal factor of the human experience.
Rank tried to brand his theory as ‘pre-Oedipus,’ but he was met with a great deal of pushback from Freud and the larger Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, of which Rank was Secretary.
Rank and Freud’s close working relationship was broken. Rank settled in the US to continue his critical psychiatric work, developing new theories and inspiring other thinkers, eventually giving light to a form of psychology dubbed the “Functional Approach.”
Carl Jung (pictured) was captivated by Rank’s work and theories. Rank also served as a therapist to artists like Henry Miller, among many others.
In his seminal work, 'Beyond Psychology,' Rank made a critical argument on the role of rationality in human life.
The text “pleads for the recognition and the acceptance of the irrational element as the most vital part of human life.”
For Rank, the individual’s inability to accept irrationality as a key factor of the “nature of life,” and the inability to creatively cope with certain inevitabilities, such as death, for example, is based on the human need and desire to seek control. Pictured is the illustration of 'Death' from Viridarium Chymicum by Daniel Stolcius, 1624.
This human need to control both individual and collective change through rationality is, what Rank argues, the primary impediment to the individual’s continued growth.
For Rank, human rationality makes the individual acutely aware of their inevitable destiny: to eventually, at some point, perish.
The human’s awareness of their impending death creates a conflict with the inherent nature of life, in the sense that the awareness of death produces a desire for immortality.
Rank sees this urge for rationality appearing in the search for institutional relief, whether in the case of traditions, beliefs, or myths.
Through a muddled sense of rationality, Rank also believed that the human behaves much more impulsively and on the basis of emotional reactivity.
It is only in retrospect that the human attempts to rationalize their own behavior and choices, reiterating our belief that we are “creatures of reason.”
For Rank, the “irrational roots of human behavior” lie in how “people, though they may think and talk rationally – and even behave so – yet live irrationally.”
Rank believes that this is because humans “live in language.” What does this mean? We are always attempting to explain our behavior and thoughts through rational frameworks.
Relating back to his first book, ‘The Artist,’ Rank believes that it is through creativity, particularly the arts, that the human engages the irrational.
In fact, Rank wrote that when we accept the paradoxical nature of how we live, we can then “discover new values in place of old ones… not mere psychological interpretations predetermined by our preferred ideologies.”
We constantly turn to language to try to explain our lives through a “constant inner stream of language.” Yet, it becomes increasingly difficult to reach what is beyond language.
When we let go of this need for control of life through rationalization and understand that the human being lives in experimental ways that are very often irrational, we can actually gain consciousness of ourselves and society.
For Rank, the “emotional resignation” of rationality’s “scientific illusion” is key to breaking the pattern of viewing “everything natural as irrational.”
A century later, philosopher Martha Nussbaum (pictured) took Rank’s understanding to another level, making a strong case for “the intelligence of emotions.”
Nussbaum argues that emotions take on a narrative form and that the narratives we tell ourselves configure “our emotional and ethical reality.”
It’s this reliance on narratives that Nussbaum argues is why the arts and literature hold such therapeutic potential for the human being, due to their “psychological function” in producing a sense of wonder and marvel.
By rejecting “excessive rationality” we, according to scholar Matthew Fox’s reading of Rank’s work, gain wisdom; a “bringing other of the rational (knowledge) and the irrational (awe and love).”
Sources: (The Marginalian) (Commentary) (Otto Rank: Pioneering Ideas for Social Work Theory and Practice) (Matthew Fox)
See also: Friedrich Nietzsche: history's most controversial philosopher
Trailblazing psychiatrist Otto Rank's thoughts on the limits of reason
Human behavior is influenced by the irrational
LIFESTYLE Brain
Otto Rank, one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues, was an Austrian psychologist who sought to challenge how we think about rationality and the weight it really takes on human behavior and decision-making. An author of multiple books, he argued for quite radical positions that caused a significant break from his colleagues, including his theory that the trauma one experiences during birth is the root of human suffering.
Another prolific theory that Rank issued is that humans actually behave quite irrationally and retrospectively use rational language to explain their behavior. Curious to know more? Click on.