Achievement Pressure

Otto Rank is an innovative and holistic thinker who ventured beyond subject–object
division, reductionism, mechanism, and classical notions of causality in his understanding of
human becoming and therapeutic relationship. Rank has in uenced object–relational;
interpersonal, experiential; and time-limited approaches, while his will psychology and
theory of creativity are unique contributions to modern psychotherapy (Kramer, 2019;
Merkur, 2010; Mitchell & Black, 1995; O’Dowd, 1986; Rudnytsky, 2018; W. Wadlington,
2012). There are links to be drawn between today’s relational psychoanalysis and Rank’s
early (pre)ontological work, where Rank’s ideas underlie developments in the direction of
some of Wilfred Bion’s1 and Donald Winnicott’s conceptions, as well as later explorations of
betweenness and thirdness (Aguayo, 2013; Ekenstierna, 2024; Ogden, 2019; Winnicott,
1984). More so, Rank can be considered a formative force behind existential–humanistic
psychology in the United States (deCarvalho, 1999; Kramer, 2019; Lieberman, 1985;
Menaker, 1982; Schneider, 2022). Jessie Taft, Rollo May, Carl Rogers, Irvin Yalom, and
Stanislav Grof are among those who bodied forth modern (re)interpretations and real-world
applications of his framework. In this article, I draw on Rank’s transitional (1924–1926) and
post-Freudian eras (1926–1939). I consider the existential and metaphysical roots of Rank’s
psychology in a larger context of meaning and expand on what such notions implicate for
practice. Areas of focus include Rank’s relational and experiential understanding of therapy,
as well as his embodied and cosmic notion of (un)conscious process.
Publication: OnlineFirst. ©American Psychological Association, 2025. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. The final article is available, upon publication, at: 10.1037/teo0000311

This report summarizes a panel (M. Murphy, 2000) that addressed the implications of new directions in science for psychoanalysis and for therapeutic technique. Elizabeth Mayer discussed empirical and theoretical developments in the sciences that point to a connected quality of physical reality. The notion of a connected or participatory universe has far-reaching implications for understanding what takes place in the clinical encounter. David Brin discussed the need for theories of human nature to consider the concept of emergent properties, the tendency of complex systems to reorganize themselves in ways that cannot be predicted. He discussed a recent emergent property of the personality system, the defiance of authority, which he described as a societal immune system against error. Both panelists stressed the need for open-mindedness in psychoanalytic conceptions of reality and of human nature. Maureen Murphy, the moderator, opened the panel by noting that new and forthcoming developments in the biological sciences promise to tell us much about our origins, our history, and our future, as well as to influence who we are and who we become. However, psychoanalysis has been slow to confront these changes, perhaps because clinicians have difficulty

This report summarizes a panel (M. Murphy, 2000) that addressed the implications of new directions in science for psychoanalysis and for therapeutic technique. Elizabeth Mayer discussed empirical and theoretical developments in the sciences that point to a connected quality of physical reality. The notion of a connected or participatory universe has far-reaching implications for understanding what takes place in the clinical encounter. David Brin discussed the need for theories of human nature to consider the concept of emergent properties, the tendency of complex systems to reorganize themselves in ways that cannot be predicted. He discussed a recent emergent property of the personality system, the defiance of authority, which he described as a societal immune system against error. Both panelists stressed the need for open-mindedness in psychoanalytic conceptions of reality and of human nature. Maureen Murphy, the moderator, opened the panel by noting that new and forthcoming developments in the biological sciences promise to tell us much about our origins, our history, and our future, as well as to influence who we are and who we become. However, psychoanalysis has been slow to confront these changes, perhaps because clinicians have difficulty

Psychoanalysis and Modernity: A Failure to Find Relief from Existential Terror by Erin Liat D. Claridge Advisor: Elliot Jurist, Ph.D., Ph.D. This project considers the ways in which culture—the symbols and institutions that guide behavior and provide meaning to the individuals living within a community—serves a defensive function against conscious awareness of existential terror. The term existential terror refers to the cognitive and emotional experience of recognizing the inevitability of death, which is often accompanied by feelings of angst, isolation from others, and awareness of meaninglessness. In this dissertation, I will argue that the broad shift from traditional culture based on JudeoChristian religious beliefs and communal forms of social life to modernity represents a slow but destabilizing deterioration of the defensive function of culture vis-à-vis existential terror. The reflexivity inherent in modern stores of knowledge (i.e., the chronic revision of information) ma...

Secondly, a warm, consoling thanks goes to my mother, whose deer-in-theheadlights countenance when we first visited a college campus together so many years ago inspired this whole thing. I am nothing without her blind, misguided confidence. If this year proves anything, I will look forward to another five years of endless voice mail asking "Is your dissertation done yet? Holly? Is it?" A special thanks must go to all of the professors I've had the privilege of working with at Wesleyan. Particular recognition goes to Charles Lemert, Lynn Owens and Joel Pfister who have played a crucial role in guiding my growth from a terrified freshman into an equally terrified graduate student. I have no doubt that I will be thanking these gentlemen over and over again as I spend the next five (or six, seven) years writing that dissertation my mother thinks should be done by now. Less visible but no less important to my efforts have been my friends. I thank Mitchell Goldfarb for his unwavering love and sympathy during a time that has been exceedingly trying on the both of us. I thank my housemates, Annalisa Bolin, Abby Hinchcliff, Lynn Favin and the honorary Cedric Bien for tolerating my 4am bedtime and my strange affinity for making animal sounds under duress. All of the beautiful ladies of both the Sociology and Government offices deserve their place here as they, too, were privy to my madness over the course of the last several years.

Secondly, a warm, consoling thanks goes to my mother, whose deer-in-theheadlights countenance when we first visited a college campus together so many years ago inspired this whole thing. I am nothing without her blind, misguided confidence. If this year proves anything, I will look forward to another five years of endless voice mail asking "Is your dissertation done yet? Holly? Is it?" A special thanks must go to all of the professors I've had the privilege of working with at Wesleyan. Particular recognition goes to Charles Lemert, Lynn Owens and Joel Pfister who have played a crucial role in guiding my growth from a terrified freshman into an equally terrified graduate student. I have no doubt that I will be thanking these gentlemen over and over again as I spend the next five (or six, seven) years writing that dissertation my mother thinks should be done by now. Less visible but no less important to my efforts have been my friends. I thank Mitchell Goldfarb for his unwavering love and sympathy during a time that has been exceedingly trying on the both of us. I thank my housemates, Annalisa Bolin, Abby Hinchcliff, Lynn Favin and the honorary Cedric Bien for tolerating my 4am bedtime and my strange affinity for making animal sounds under duress. All of the beautiful ladies of both the Sociology and Government offices deserve their place here as they, too, were privy to my madness over the course of the last several years.

We review evidence on a group recently identified as “at risk,” that is, youth in upwardly mobile, upper-middle class community contexts. These youngsters are statistically more likely than normative samples to show serious disturbance across several domains including drug and alcohol use, as well as internalizing and externalizing problems. Extant data on these problems are reviewed with attention to gender-specific patterns, presenting quantitative developmental research findings along with relevant evidence across other disciplines. In considering possible reasons for elevated maladjustment, we appraise multiple pathways, including aspects of family dynamics, peer norms, pressures at schools, and policies in higher education. All of these pathways are considered within the context of broad, exosystemic mores: the pervasive emphasis, in contemporary American culture, on maximizing personal status, and how this can threaten the well-being of individuals and of communities. We then ...

Children of affluence are generally presumed to be at low risk. However, recent studies have suggested problems in several domainsFnotably, substance use, anxiety, and depressionFand 2 sets of potential causes: pressures to achieve and isolation from parents. Recognizing the limited awareness of these issues, the objectives in this paper are to collate evidence on the nature of problems among the wealthy and their likely causes. The first half of the paper is focused on disturbances among affluent children and the second half is focused on characteristics of their families and neighborhoods. Widespread negative sentiments toward the rich are then discussed, and the paper concludes with suggestions for future work with families at the upper end of the socioeconomic spectrum.

In March of 2019, news of the college admissions scandal broke. Opinion pieces flooded the media on how and why such a thing could have happened. Here, the author argues that the scandal is more about parenting than the institution of higher education.

Recent theories of test anxiety hold that self-directed attention impairs the performances of test-anxious persons in evaluative situations. Researchers have not sought to experimentally validate the mediation of selffocus in this relationship, however. Two studies are reported that were intended to provide evidence on this point. The studies also integrate the impairment hypothesis with a broader model of self-regulation, in which self-focus is sometimes facilitating and sometimes debilitating, depending upon the person's expectancies of being able to perform adequately. In Experiment 1, subjects high and low in test anxiety attempted a series of anagrams in an evaluative situation. As predicted, rather than exerting a uniformly adverse effect, experimentally enhanced self-focus interacted with level of test anxiety, improving performances among low-anxious subjects, impairing them among the test-anxious. Subjects in Experiment

This paper investigates some psychodynamic aspects of a new global class: New Cosmopolitans work in highly creative professions that are organized in global networks run in English. Their identities are more influenced by these networks than by ethnic, national, and religious upbringing, and their frame of reference is global. Clinical, sociological, and economic data suggest that it is more difficult for New Cosmopolitans to maintain stable self-esteem, because their frame of reference is global. They suffer more from the existential fear of insignificance associated with mortality, and their existential safety is lowered because they are less rooted in ethnic and national structures. Nevertheless, New Cosmopolitans are a very influential group because of their influence in media, academia, and high-tech, and it is therefore a valuable project to understand their psychodynamic and to investigate implications of their lifestyle and the necessity of using Skype to maintain therapeutic continuity with them.