A Dream That Interprets Itself
Otto Rank author Gregory C Richter translator Robert Kramer editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Karnac Books
Published:31st Oct '23
Should be back in stock very soon
Sigmund Freud hired Otto Rank as his secretary and funded Rank’s PhD in literature at the University of Vienna. In 1910, at age 26, Rank published ‘A Dream That Interprets Itself’. Freud could not praise the essay highly enough; impressed by Rank’s erudition, Freud invited his protégé to contribute two chapters, on poetry and myth, in 1914 to The Interpretation of Dreams. Thereafter, Rank’s name would appear under Freud’s on the title page of the foundational text of psychoanalysis for the next fifteen years.
Grateful for Freud’s generosity, Rank published a stream of articles and books advancing psychoanalytic thinking into almost every area of the arts and humanities, thus demonstrating to Freud’s critics that the validity of psychoanalysis did not hinge solely on his autobiographical work The Interpretation of Dreams. Rank died in 1939 and his work fell out of favor until a renaissance of interest beginning in the 1970s.
This is the first English translation of Rank’s masterpiece of dream interpretation, originally published in 1910 as “Ein Traum, der sich selbst deutet” in the journal Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen, 2(2): 465–540. It is accompanied by an in-depth introduction from editor Robert Kramer, the world’s only Rankian psychologist. The book is essential reading for all psychoanalytic scholars, practitioners, and historians, and those interested in dream analysis.
‘Otto Rank’s A Dream That Interprets Itself is a tour de force by a thinker who radically rethought Freud’s model for dream analysis. Bringing all of his cultural and literary sophistication to bear, Rank examines something very rare in the early psychoanalysis, a dream from a member of the working class, a governess in a wealthy family. Such analysis provides not only innovative insight into the internal processes of the dreamer but into her sense of the world which she inhabits. A shining translation by Gregory Richter of a major milestone in the psychoanalytic literature of the first generation.’
-- Sander L. Gilman, author of Are Racists Crazy? How Prejudice, Racism, and Antisemitism Became Markers of Insanity‘Otto Rank – one of the founders of global psychoanalysis – became, alas, “vilified, ignored, or simply forgotten”. Happily, due to Robert Kramer’s passionate and meticulous scholarship and Gregory Richter’s superb and fluid translation skills, English-language readers now have the privilege of enjoying Rank’s much-overlooked text, which provides us all with immense insight and understanding of dreams and the human mind.’
-- Professor Brett Kahr, Senior Fellow, Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, London, and visiting professor of psychoanalysis and mental health at Regent’s University London‘A young woman amused by her eccentric dream asks Otto Rank to interpret her dream. She is not a patient, not neurotic, and has little interest in psychoanalysis. Rank uses her dream to prove the validity of Freud's theory. The result is a remarkable and exceptionally multi-layered, highly intricate text with an insightful introduction by leading Rankian expert Robert Kramer.’
-- Professor Aner Govrin, Director of Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics Doctoral Track, Bar-Ilan University'This short book published for the first time in English translation takes us through Rank's interpretation of two dreams told to him by one woman. [...] The book is very much of its time – Rank's interpretation operates within a set of turn-of-the-century cultural and sexual norms, and it would be fascinating to see how modern gender theory and politics would play into the interpretation of those dreams now.'
-- Nick Campion, MBACP, integrative psychotheraISBN: 9781800132054
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 8mm
Weight: 236g
120 pages