Psychoanalytic Problems 1927

I was reading an article from Otto Rank from 1927, which is after he left/was kicked out of the orthodoxy. I wanted to share some of his takes on Freud's positions primarily, and some of his ideas secondarily. Through Rank's eyes we can see that there was already a lack of consensus and confusion about psychoanalytic ideas, even when Freud was still alive. Rank is a gifted thinker, who had very much been an insider and worked closely with Freud.

If we now wanted clearly to demonstrate the problematical points of the psychoanalytic doctrine, then the presupposition would be a systematic presentation of psychoanalysis by which one would, so to say, automatically push up against all gaps, obscurities, and uncertainties. But such a systematic presentation with this in view has hitherto not been attempted just because our psychoanalytic knowledge was too incomplete and uncertain. Freud himself has again and again warned us against a too hasty systematization. His and his pupils' work, which helped the psychoanalytic doctrine to further development and elaboration in describing the advancement of the analytic theory and method, was naturally historical. That is, they pursued definite themes emerging in the investigation up to a certain point to wait for some further connection which sometimes came quite late, sometimes not at all, sometimes finally from an unexpected direction. This empirical method preferred by Freud himself had the advantage that premature systematic presentations were avoided, but the disadvantage that a number of facts had to remain unexplained and could be made intelligible only relatively late in attempting a systematic presentation. Even Freud's recent systematic works on the ego-psychology are, if we may say so, “empirically “drafted. They fight shy of embracing the whole of the psychoanalytic doctrine; rather, mostly admittedly, they link on to isolated problems which emerged earlier, and since have found no further explanation. In some of these works Freud himself emphasizes this fact by partly wondering that analysis has not earlier set to work on these pressing problems, partly stating that the final solutions lead to simple facts which one could have found in simpler ways.

This general contrast between the historical and the systematic ways of presentation which is somehow parallel to the contrast between “empirical “and “speculative, “leads us into the very midst of one of the chief problems of the psychoanalytic investigation itself. I do not want to approach a psychology of the scholar nor the way in which scientific discoveries are made and developed. But it may be mentioned that a number of resistances arise not only from the inflexibility and incidentalness of the material but also from the intellectual and emotional attitude of the investigator. This seems to be one reason why the empirical development and historical presentation must necessarily alternate from time to time with an attempt at systematic presentation. (1927, p. 2)


These are important statements. Those who brought academic discourse into psychoanalysis often want to accuse Freud of having a system and a system that is reductionistic at that. It irritates me to think of the dilettantes who made their names in saving psychoanalysis from Freud. 

In the historical viewpoint lie dangers which may become grave theoretically and practically. On the one hand one will always be inclined to overestimate the recent discoveries to the disadvantage of the earlier ones. This, however, makes progress possible for the investigator himself and for the science, but one should not be too dogmatic, otherwise it fails in its purpose. It need hardly be emphasized that a second reversed danger threatens from the conservative tendencies of our attitude to hold on to what is already familiar and assimilated and to defend oneself against all that is new. The only possibility of a real and gradual advance seems to be to receive the new reluctantly in trying to make it compatible with what is already familiar. (ibid., p. 3)

How much of current psychoanalysis is simply reinventing the wheel and emphasizing little truths over and against Freud's structural theory!  

It is the same with the so-called” extended concept of sexuality “ which according to my view was unfortunately chosen, and has rightly given rise to the most severe protests. As under the habitual manner of speech something quite definite was already understood by “sexuality, “it must lead to constant misunderstanding if one designates things briefly as sexual which conform to the extended concept of sexuality. It was thus necessary to insert the concept of “libido “for this extended concept of sexuality. But it is characteristic that hitherto even in analytic circles, there is no clearness as to the meaning of this concept. Also the Platonic term “Eros, “proposed later by Freud, has not been adopted... Similarly it happened to the concept of repression, perhaps the most productive viewpoint of the whole analytic psychology. Here also it became the custom to designate every kind of psychical defense as repression. This led to careless negligence of a theoretical and practical nature. And although Freud himself had explained at the beginning, repression is only one of the forms by means of which the ego wards off unpleasant impulses, yet he himself uses almost exclusively the term repression even where another form of defense is operative and hence another term would be more in place. (p. 7)

The true mark of a psychoanalytic thinker is whether he or she understands Freud's wide use of sexuality. Those who criticize Freud for his use of the term are hacks.

With that we come to the two most important concepts of psychoanalysis, the Oedipus and the castration complexes. Here also we see the same fate being accomplished, but perhaps here in the most unfortunate way. This signifies less a criticism than the fact that these concepts could be explained only with advancing knowledge, whereby they were stretched beyond their limit. Psychoanalytic terminology has here only partly shared in the advance beyond these primitive mythological concepts. We need only reflect about the simple state of affairs which Freud originally designated with the term “Oedipus-complex “and which to-day must include everything if it is not to be misunderstood. The exact presentation of this mere change in the concept, which however was no real change but only an expansion, would require a comprehensive systematic presentation of the whole of psychoanalysis. Originally only referring to the simple state of affairs expressed in the Oedipus-myth, the relation of the brothers and sisters was soon attributed to the Oedipus complex. On the other hand Freud attempted to trace the whole later formation of the super-ego back to the Oedipus-complex, whilst one extends the concept in the other direction to a “prenatal Oedipus-situation. “If thus the Oedipus complex finally includes everything in it, then it was certainly easy to explain it as the “nuclear complex of the neuroses...  In doing this the Freudian concept of the Oedipus complex proved to be a first rough comprehension of a highly complicated psycho-biological and social state of affairs which needed further analytic illumination. (p. 8)

I appreciate Rank's point and there should be many more complexes than just calling everything the Oedipus complex. However, the point still remains that everything that is interpersonal, and a repetition, was already included in classical psychoanalysis. 

It was the same with the concept of the castration complex—likewise also borrowed from the myth—but originally belonging to the Oedipus stratum. It likewise was expanded in two directions, and at present everything is put in the castration complex, even the Oedipus complex itself, as recently an analytic colleague said to me in private conversation. Besides castration at the (genital) Oedipus stage, it signifies giving up the mother's breast (Starcke), yes, birth (Alexander) whilst Freud himself moreover used it as a synonym for anxiety... (p.9)

What Rank leaves out here is that he contributed to this with early ideas of Oedipus blinding himself as castration. The genitals are replaced by different erotogenic zones and there is cause to see all the anxiety laden relation to non-genital zones as carrying the significance of castration. To smugly refer to this adds nothing to the dynamics and the zones of earlier stages and phases should be studied for their own ontic relations, but the level of meaning that is imparted to these earlier stages does become structured by castration.