Columbia Library columns (v.33(1983Nov-1984May))

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  v.33,no.3(1984:May): Page 11  



Otto Ra7?k i7i America                             11

force but it did not take away from anything else—it gave you a
force of your own."

There was relatively little focus on her childhood and parents,
only as it related to the present. He did not talk about the ongoing
relationship with her, but remarked in regard to her husband that
a transference had to develop in order for therapy to work. "You
had the feeling that Rank was your best friend. That does not in
the slightest mean that he always agreed with you. But I never had
that feeling with any other psychiatrist. It was exciting. There
was no other relationship like it. Rank was not looking for disease,
he was not trying to eradicate anything. My relationship with
him affected all my other relationships, it opened them up. One
day I was telling him a dream I had and asked him to tell me what
it meant. 'What do you think it means \ oursclfr' he asked. 'That
is more important than what I think.'"

.Mrs. Plowden and her husband had both seen Rank shortly be¬
fore his death, at fifty-five, on October 31, 1939. They paid a
condolence call to his widow, Estelle, to whom he had been mar¬
ried only three months. Estelle would bring Rank's big airedale.
Spooky, to the Plowdens' when she came to visit. The friendship
between Mary Plowden and Estelle (Rank) Simon continues to
the present, the centenary of Otto Rank's birth, fort\-five years
after his death.
  v.33,no.3(1984:May): Page 11