2 0                                       Jessie Taft

situation w as almost intoletable, involving as it did the personal
devotion of twenty years, his obligation to the man who had trained
him and given him unfailing professional backing, now in conflict
with his own integrity and freedom to develop independently.

From 1924 to 1926, when Rank separated from Freud overtly
by moving from Vienna to Paris, Freud struggled to keep Rank
within the group, finally joining w ith other members of the inner
circle in attributing to neurosis the source of his unaccountable
behavior. So reluctant was I reud to abandon Rank to his fate, so
really anxious to save him ftom himself, that the growing conflict,
clearly stated theoretically by Rank in the published books that
followed the Trauma of Birth in quick succession, was not clearly
apprehended in New York for several years. Meanwhile Rank
continued to analyze the younger psychiattists in New York City
with a few- from Boston and near-by cities, and to hold weekly
seminars during his yearly visits up to and through the winter and
spring of 1930. In the Rank papcts at Columbia are to be found the
minutes of his last seminar, conducted primarily for psychoanalysts
but including a few Ph.D.'s hke myself.

In May of that year, the meeting of the first International Mental
Hygiene Congress in Washington, where Rank presented his point
of view in a paper, finally brought into the open the irreconcilable
differences between I reud and Rank and gave the Freudian analysts
their opportunity to attack and repudiate Rank befote the world.
From this time on. Rank stood alone, a successful psychotherapist
to the last, despite the ovett hostility of the psychoanalytic group
and its failure to recognize his genius.

When the threat of war began to empty Patis of Americans,
Rank decided to come to this country. In the fall of 1934 he settled
in New York—to remain until his death in 1939.

My own relation to the Rank collection, which has recently
been given to the Special Collections Department of the Columbia
Libraries, requires some explanation. From 1926 to 1930, my
acquaintance with Rank was on a friendly but professional basis,
as I had begun to practice psychotherapy in Philadelphia after my