Otto Rank, Austrian-American psychologist and academic (died 1939)

Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, and philosopher. Born in Vienna, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, until publishing his theory on the Trauma of Birth, which marked the beginning of an ideological split from Freudism. Rank was a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, editor of the two leading analytic journals of the era, including Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, managing director of Freud's publishing house, and a creative theorist and therapist. In 1926, Rank left Vienna for Paris and, for the remainder of his life, led a successful career as a lecturer, writer, and therapist in France and the United States.