It’s 1928. I imagine continuing my radio interview of Doctor Otto Rank, the 43-year-old protégé of Sigmund Freud who made a clean break with Freud last year.
Otto Rank is sitting in front of the other microphone in our radio station’s studio. He’s a short man, about 5’4”. He has thick owl-like eyeglasses and these make it seem as if his eyes – large, powerful, and fiery eyes – are bulging out of their sockets. With his round face, he resembles a frog.
As I’m thinking about how he looks like a frog, I turn our discussion to his views of neurosis and the human will:
Me: “Doctor Rank, what is the will?”
Rank: “A force with the constructive capacity to rule, develop, and change the surrounding world and to re-create the self. A guiding, integrating, and unifying force for the self. The autonomous organizing force in the individual which constitutes the creative expression of the total personality.”
Me: “So it’s not Freud’s libido or Adler’s will to power?”
Rank: “No, Mister Weber, neither.”
Me: “What is neurosis?”
Rank: “Denying, inhibiting, and repressing too much of one’s creative energy and power, the life of one’s impulses and one’s will. Constantly restricting one’s life function and one’s actions because of fear and guilt. Also, turning away from reality. Turning away from the self. Refusing to accept reality and use reality, with all its difficulties and pains, and refusing to accept and use the self that one’s been given.”
Me: “Interesting, Doctor Rank. It heavily involves a failure to overcome fear?”
Rank: “Yes, Mister Weber. Neurotics are too inhibited. Their fear holds their life impulse in check.”
Me: “Why do neurotics deny their will?”
Rank: “The denial of one’s will is closely tied to content in one’s consciousness. Neurotics begin by being against willing some definite thing. But then neurotics connect willing against that thing to willing itself. ‘Willing is bad’, they conclude, and they say no to willing.”
Me: “So a neurotic person has a weak will?”
Rank: “No, Mister Weber, the opposite. Neurotics have a strong will, but it is turned back and exercised against the self, and so the will is controlling the self in a way that is destructive. Neurosis is an expression of the individual’s creative force, and the will is strong. But that force is directed at oneself so that the will creates its downfall.”
Me: “Neurotics reject part of themselves?”
Rank: “Yes. They feel, ‘I ought not to have such a strong will’. Some even think, ‘maybe I should have no will at all’. They cannot accept themselves as worthwhile individuals. Expressing their own individual will makes them feel guilty. So they deny their will, because expressing or exercising one’s will can be negative. But you see, eh? Denying their individual will makes them feel guilty too. The unused life inside of them makes them feel guilty.”
Me: “Either way, neurotics are diminished.”
Rank: “That’s correct. They make themselves incapable of living. Guilt breaks their wills. But when they become so inhibited, little can be lost in life and little can be won. They settle for living at less than their ideal. They attempt to deceive life about themselves, but in the end they deceive themselves about life.”
Me: “Doctor Rank, how do people free themselves from neurosis?”
Rank: “There are three ways, Mister Weber. The first two are not ideal. First, you can let your will dominate your life and not control your impulses at all. This can lead to crime and catastrophe.”
Me: “We’ll reject that option.”
Rank: “Second, you can adjust your will to the majority, and take your ideal from other people without putting much thought or energy into it. You might do fine. You probably won’t be neurotic. But you’ll also be denying your own strong will. You’ll resist your own individuation.”
Me: “Not a bad option, but not the best choice for most neurotic people, who, you’ve told us, don’t have a weak will but a strong will.”
Rank: “That’s right, Mister Weber. So there’s only one way out of neurosis. There’s only one cure. You have to become a constructive, productive person who has positively accepted and affirmed your will, your individuality, and your ideals. You have to arrive at your own ideals, your own values, your own ethics, freely, without social compulsion. Then you can live in harmony with your ideals and your powers. You’ll be a strong person with an autonomous will and you’ll be at one with yourself.”
Me: “That’s it? It’s that simple?”
Rank: “Simple, but challenging, even difficult. However, it’s the only way out of neurosis. You see, eh? Either our will manifests negatively or positively. We must try to check our impulses with our moral and ethical ideals, but doing so causes us guilt.”
Me: “And neurotics get stuck there?”
Rank: “Yes. They are denying their will and reacting to their will with guilt. Do you want to go the rest of your life defending yourself against yourself?”
Me: “You have a powerful message for our listeners, Doctor Rank.”
Rank: “Listener, I say to you, do what is essential to your growth. Meet the challenge of human individuation. Deep within yourself, accept yourself as a real, independent, unique individual being. From within your own being, define your moral and ethical ideal – your ideal for yourself and your ideal of human well-being. On a deep existential level, accept and affirm your will, accept and affirm your own individual self. Then act in freedom as you develop yourself in accord with your personal and social ideals.”