Otto Rank (Rosenfeld) was born in Vienna. After he met Freud, he joined his inner circle (1906). Together with others, he edited the psychoanalytic journal Image and Intenationale Zeitschrift fuer Psychoanalyse (1912-1924). He founded and was director of the Internationale Psychoanalytische Verlag (1919-1924). He was talented in explaining dreams legends and myths. He published a great work on incest myth (1912).
During the First World War he was in Galicia, mainly in Krakow, where according to other people, he suffered from melancholia, which caused to changes in the years later in his thoughts. He wrote a book The trauma of the birth (1923), in which he emphasised other elements than Freudian theory, especially the determination of anxiety, and underemphasised the role of incest and the Oedipus complex. After publishing his book, Rank broke with Freud, and left Vienna. He settled in the USA in 1935.