Early in my new novel, Dylan Steffan, age 29, talks with his Aunt Carmen, 72, about Roberto Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis and Otto Rank’s “Rankian” therapy — the form of Fourth Force “Transpersonal” Psychology that each has practiced.
Denver
March 25, 1970
I’m engaged in the simple task of cooking beans and Spanish rice while Aunt Carmen cooks the chile rellenos. Her kitchen is small but contains all the space we need. She’s already roasted fresh green chiles and removed the skin. She boils brown onions, water, tomato sauce, and shortening, then lets the mix simmer.
“So, Dylan, tell me again about this Roberto Assagioli.”
“His very presence is inspiring and transformational, Aunt Carmen. And he’s so serene. Serene through all pain and difficulties. Serene not because he’s resigned to things in a fatalistic way but serene because his confidence in transcendent goodness is so strong.”
“Wonderful,” she says.
“He sees what’s best in every person, even when it’s lying latent and dormant. He takes the best from every situation, even the negative ones.”
“As should we all.”
“And despite the depth and breadth of his extraordinary vision, he’s humble, he’s patient and kind, he stays curious, he retains his sense of wonder, and he’s always ready to learn something new about life.”
Carmen smiles and nods. “An exemplary man.”
“Reminds me of my own mentor.”
I nod. “Otto Rank.”
“Yes. Otto Rank.” She has me cut cheese into slices – two inches long and a quarter-inch thick. She sprinkles salt on the eggs and beats them till they’re stiff. Then she gently folds the eggs and blends them thoroughly. She spoons some lard into a skillet and turns the oven unit to medium.
“You know, Dylan, I don’t understand why you haven’t become a Rankian.”
I shrug. “There’s no such thing as a Rankian these days, Aunt Carmen. But now we call it all Fourth Force Psychology.” She raises her eyebrows. “The Fourth Force includes anyone with an approach to psychology that involves the spiritual or transpersonal. William James, Carl Jung, Roberto Assagioli, and your favorite, Otto Rank.”
She stuffs the chiles with the cheese and sprinkles the chiles with flour. She dips the chiles in egg batter till they are entirely covered with it. She places the battered chiles in the skillet with the lard.
Carmen knew Dr. Rank. Even went through therapy with him in the summer of ’28 with her husband, my Uncle Riis – and from then on she was a Rankian therapist.
“So you’re a Fourth Force therapist like me,” she says, smiling.
I nod and smile back. I always love basking in Carmen’s wise, warm, graceful, and healing presence.
I seem to be following the same trajectory through life that she did. I completed my residency for my medical degree at Yale University in ’66 and then opened my own psychotherapy practice here in Denver. She completed her medical degree and residency at the University of Colorado in Boulder in the 1920s and then practiced therapy for three decades in Colorado and Wyoming.
“Tell me, Dylan, how are Rank and Assagioli similar?” The rellenos continue cooking nicely in the skillet.
“Well, first, Rankian therapy and Psychosynthesis both place strong emphasis on the human will.” She perks up. I nod. “I agree with Otto Rank that our creative will is the center of change. I even agree with his definition: Our will is the organizing force within us – our primal life force – that guides and integrates our self.”
“That’s what I did in all my therapy work,” she says. “Coaxed my clients to rediscover and then positively accept and affirm their positive, creative, individual will.”
“Absolutely.”
She nods. “Deep within them, to accept themselves as a real, independent, unique individual being. Break free. Strengthen their will. Exercise their positive, creative will every day without feeling guilty. Accept their individuality, affirm it, develop it, cultivate it.”
I light up. “Assagioli too. The goal of Psychosynthesis is to help clients mobilize the energies of their will and exercise their will in daily life. A strong and good will and a skillful will. And to help them cultivate more empathy, compassion, and love. Even to unite their will with their love for people. Selecting their purpose, choosing, affirming their will, planning, and executing – the five steps in the development of their will, as Doctor Assagioli teaches it.”
She nods again. “Rankian enough.”
She picks up a spatula, takes the rellenos out of the skillet, and places two on each plate. I place a generous scoop of both beans and rice on each plate. We head for her dining room.
“Delicious, Aunt Carmen, as always. I actually think I can integrate Rankian therapy into my work as a Psychosynthesis therapist.”
“They seem to align regarding the human will, nephew. How does Assagioli define psychological health? Rank defined it as maximum individuation and maximum connectedness. Balancing our individuating and our connecting. Accepting our unique, positive, strong-willed self. And uniting with others in tenderness, empathy, compassion, love.”
I nod. “The aim in Psychosynthesis is to help guide clients into a life of psychospiritual abundance and fullness. To help clients take a path up out of their limits and into a deeper, broader, strengthened, and liberated direction. To find wisdom, meaning, and values, including social concern and maximal encounter with other people.”
“Good, good. And what about Rank’s definition of therapy as the creation of the new self? Helping each client rise from passivity to become an active creator and then an active self-creator? Helping them actively, consciously create their new self?”
“Similar, but I’ll draw from Rank on that.”
“It’s essential, Dylan. Helping our clients form and reform themselves, then affirm themselves. Take possession of more of their ideal self. And enter each new situation from that fullness – with their ideal self with all its creative powers free to intend, think, and act.”
“I think I’ll be able to do that, Aunt Carmen.”
In fact, my leading is to go much further than that – much further than a synthesis of Assagioli and Rank – but given that the leadings of Riis and Ren have initiated family tragedies I’m still not sure how Carmen will respond to mine.