Beyond Psychology [Paperback]

Otto Rank (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 2011

A plea for the acceptance of the irrational element in man ss the most vital part of human life. Rank discusses the ultimates — psychological concepts which go beyond the individual's makeup, such as fear of death, desire for immortality, sexuality, and the need for love — and the institutions which support these concepts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (November 2, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486204855
• ISBN-13: 978-0486204857
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #293,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Brilliant, July 27, 2003

By 

Herbert L Calhoun "paulocal" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond Psychology (Paperback)

Rank proves the truth of the thesis that a teacher has done his job when he becomes the student. This tour de force on Freudian psychological thought extends the bounds beyond anything that Freud, his teacher and mentor could have ever imagined himself.

Every sentence is lucid and compelling.

This book sparkles and speaks mostly to man's fears and irrationalities. But it does not try to exorcise or explan them away. For the first time a theory accepts them both as integral parts of the fabric of the human condition. The treatment of ideologies alone is worth the price of ten books, but there is more, a lot more: on creativity, social organization, human personality, etc. Ten stars!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Embracing the paradox ..., August 16, 2005

By 

Clement Wether (Shifting between places, periodically) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Psychology (Paperback)

The odd thing with both Freud & Lacan is that, having promoted the notion of the unconscious in all its vicissitudes & unknowability, they then proceed to map & double-guess it. The result, in short, a 'rule-book' for the unconscious.

Rank makes no such mistake ... he prods & weaves, essays & intuits, but never reduces the vagueries to maps, schemas or graphs ... on the contrary, Rank discerns & celebrates the paradoxical character of the godworm.

He's not an easy read, but a necessary one.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best for the Last?, April 21, 2008

By 

Ejames LIEBERMAN (Potomac, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond Psychology (Paperback)

Rank's last book, the only one he wrote in English, was published two years after his untimely death in 1939. As his biographer (Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank), I paid it too little heed, as some informants interviewed 25 years ago felt that because the book was not quite finished, it might have been altered in the process of getting it published. I now doubt that. Like other reviewers I find it slow going but rich, deep, sensitive, and brilliant. It requires and deserves re-reading. Unfortunately Dover has let it go out of print, but it seems to be readily available used. Only 1,000 of the hardback were printed; the paperback appeared around 1958 (several different covers were used). Another important Rank book first became available in a full English translation in 1998: Psychology and the Soul: A Study of the Origin, Conceptual Evolution, and Nature of the Soul.