2010 Reprint of 1952 Edition. First published in 1924, Otto Rank's The Trauma of Birth took as its starting point a note that Freud added to his The Interpretation of Dreams: "Moreover, the act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety". Rank set out to identify "the ultimate biological basis of the psychical," the very "nucleus of the unconscious" (p. xxiii). For him this was the physical event of birth, whereby the infant passes from a state of perfectly contented union with the mother to a state of parlous separation via an oppressive experience of asphyxiation, constriction, confinement in the vaginal canal, and so on-all feelings recognizable in anxiety states of every kind. It was the struggle against this traumatic experience of birth, in Rank's account, that structured the fantasy life of the child, including the disavowal of the difference between the sexes, infantile sexual theories, and oedipal scenarios. Castration anxiety was a defensive derivative of the anxiety associated with the birth trauma.

About the Book Books about Psychology discuss the behavior of the human mind, conscious and unconscious phenomena, and how mental processes can be understood. Titles include: A History of the Sciences. History of Psychology, Abstraktion und Einfuhlung: ein Beitrag zur Stilpsychologie, An introduction to experimental psychology in relation to education, Collected Papers on the Psychology of Phantasy, Die Psychologie des Mordes, Die Psychologie und Erkenntnisslehre des Johannes Duns Scotus, Freud's theories of the neuroses, Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology, La Psychologie du Soldat, Medical psychology and psychical research, Strategies of Psychotherapy, Studies in the Psychology of Sex. Sexual Inversion, and The philosophy of self-help; an application of practical psychology to daily life. About us Trieste Publishing's aim is to provide readers with the highest quality reproductions of fiction and non-fiction literature that has stood the test of time. Our titles are produced from scans of the original books and as a result may sometimes have imperfections. To ensure a high-quality product we have: thoroughly reviewed every page of all the books in the catalog repaired some of the text in some cases, and rejected titles that are not of the highest quality. You can look up "Trieste Publishing" in categories that interest you to find other titles in our large collection. Come home to the books that made a difference