 Freud considered Rank, with whom he was more intimate intellectually than his own sons, to be the most brilliant of his Viennese disciples.Encouraged and supported by Freud, Rank completed the "Gymnasium" or college-preparatory high school, attended the University of Vienna, and was awarded his PhD in literature in 1912.His thesis, on the Lohengrin Saga, was published in 1911, the first Freudian doctoral dissertation to be published as a book.