Person-environment mergence and separation: Otto rank’s psychology of emotion, personality, and culture

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1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Between 1924 and 1939 Otto Rank put forward three major elements of a comprehensive theoretical edifice that has yet to be fully articulated. These are conceptually linked by the fundamental importance of person-environment mergence and separation. Rank’s theory of emotions highlights anxiety as the affect of separation, and guilt as the feeling that binds the individual to others. His personality theory distinguishes between the partialist, who responds to life fear with identification, and the totalist, who responds to death fear with projection. His cultural psychology contrasts primal collectivism with contemporary individualism, which orients the person toward individual immortality striving. Individualism has produced problematic self-consciousness and neuroticism, in the face of which Rank struggled to find a new psychology.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)743-770
Number of pages28
JournalPsychoanalytic Review
Volume103
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2016

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Clinical Psychology

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