Known for the concept of the “trauma of birth,” Otto Rank’s contributions to the fields of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy have largely been obscured. Rank came from an impoverished family with an alcoholic father, and was sent to a trade school to become a locksmith. However, his unique insight into applying psychoanalytic concepts in understanding philosophy and art caught the attention of Freud, who supported him in his college education and graduate studies. Freud hired him to be the secretary of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, where he functioned as Freud’s “right hand man” for close to twenty years. Intriguingly, his “breaking away” from Freud’s circle coincided with Freud’s diagnosis of oral cancer and near-death from surgical complications. Ostracized by orthodox Freudians, he nevertheless was able to further explore pre-Oedipal issues and the significance of separation anxiety. He developed his patient-centered, brief psychotherapeutic approach, with particular focus on the “here and now” and on patients’ autonomy and self-healing potential. His ideas heralded the later developments of client-centered therapy, existential-humanistic therapy, and Gestalt therapy.

Using Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, chapter 3 describes “immortality projects” that are commonly used to avoid the terror of death. Immortality projects are activities that we humans regard as endowing cosmic significance and eternal life on us, including both publicly recognized projects and everyday, quotidian undertakings. None of these “one-dimensional” immortality projects work, Becker states. We die despite our efforts to cast ourselves as immortal. The terror of death, however, is so great that we lie to ourselves about the ineffectiveness of our immortality projects. Becker says that these lies are “vital,” given that death with extinction is so terrifying. It is terrifying because we humans desperately need to believe that our lives have lasting meaning. The only true way to deal with the prospect of death, Becker states, is to “die” and be “reborn” by identifying with what he calls “the transcendent.” Chapter 3 describes what is involved in this rebirth.