Frank J. Marchese PhD - Coming Into Being: Sabina Spielrein, Jung, Freud, and Psychoanalysis

Where love reigns, the ego, the ominous despot, dies.

Sabina Spielrein

This book concerns theRussian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Sabina Spielrein, her relationship toCarl Jung and Sigmund Freud, and her contribution to psychoanalysis in itsearly history and development. Spielrein began as a patient of Carl Jung andbecame a successful medical student, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in herown right and a colleague of Jung and Freud. Yet it has been rightfullysuggested that Spielrein was never accorded the recognition she deserved forher influence on the theory and practice of psychoanalysis (Covington, 2003a).Although Freud and Jung are regarded as pioneers of modern psychology, as onehistorian of psychoanalysis reminded us, in the written history ofpsychoanalysis we look in vain for Sabina Spielrein (Richebcher, 2003, p. 246).As a recent biographical commentary put it, she seems to have vanished fromthe psychoanalytic literature (Launer, 2011, p. 9).

Vanished? Ironic, in light of what the eminent childpsychologist and psychoanalyst, Bruno Bettelheim (1983), noted in regard toSpielrein. He said she was one of the great pioneers of psychoanalysis(p. 44). Two prominent historians of psychoanalysis, Appignanesi andForrester (2000), concur with Bettelheims viewpoint. They remark thatSpielrein was the first woman analyst to have a significant theoretical impacton psychoanalysis (p. 204). And yet, for most of the twentieth century,the main record of her existence consisted of four footnotes in Freudsessays (Launer, 2011, p. 9).

Recently, however, there has been a rekindling ofinterest in Spielrein. In 2011, Canadian director David Cronenberg released afilm entitled A Dangerous Method, about her relationship with Jung andFreud. There has also been renewed interest among academic writers such asCovington and Wharton (2003) and Allain-Dupr (2004).

In writing this book, my aim has been to bring certainaspects of Spielreins life into sharper relief. The book offers a review andanalysis of the historical portrayal of Spielreins influence on Freud andJungs thinking, and broadens the scope of Spielreins place in the early yearsof the development of psychoanalysis. By examining her theoretical insights andher contributions to important concepts such as Freuds death instinct,transference/countertransference,the book will help to restore Spielreins deserved place among thoseearly pioneers in psychoanalysis. Furthermore, this book explores the methodthat these three principal figures developed and utilized in the early days of analytictherapy as a treatment technique for mental illness. It reveals how Spielrein,Jung, and Freud were profoundly affectedindividually, personally, andcollectivelyby the very method for madness, or talking cure, they employedwith those afflicted with mental problems.

It is necessary to shed some light on the beginnings ofpsychoanalysis, especially in regard to Spielreins overlooked contributions tothe early years of its development. Just as it was with Josef Breuer(18421925), whose role was minimized by Freud over the years, so it was withSpielrein, whose contributions were ignored outright by the psychoanalyticestablishment. Freud refashioned the history of psychoanalysis to suit hispurposes, with his Dream of Undying Fame. As Breger (2009) comments, Freudplaced himself at the forefront of developments in psychoanalysis while failingto give due credit to others. It was not until 1920, in his Beyond thePleasure Principle, that Freud openly acknowledged the importance ofSpielreins efforts. In 1930, in his Civilization and its Discontents,Freud made a further attempt at acknowledgement. There he tried to understandwhy he had not been receptive to her ideas years earlier (Cremerius, 2003). Hisadmissions came eight and eighteen years, respectively, after the publicationof her seminal contribution to psychoanalytic theory, Destruction as the Causeof Coming into Being of 1912 (Spielrein, 1912/1994).

This book is an exploration of the relationships thatdeveloped between Spielrein, Jung, and Freud. In concentrating on theintricacies of these relationships, we gain a glimpse of why Spielrein was notgiven due credit at the time she presented her key ideas. It has been suggestedthat Freud and Jung rejected Sabina Spielreins theory in its entirety(Launer, 2011, p. 10). For example, she postulated an inevitable conflictbetween two drives: on the one hand, the drive to self-preservation, whichprotected the individuals personal survival; and the species-reproductiondrive on the other, which pressed for continuance of the species throughprocreative acts. As the aim of the species-preservation drive asserted itself,it came into conflict with the self-preservation drive; for as the formerpressed for expression through the act of procreation, the individual wasrequired to sacrifice his or her identity to bring about new life.

According to Spielrein, reproduction was bothdestructive and creative; it was destructive of the individuals identity butcreative for the continuance of the species. As Spielrein said of these twocompeting drives, No change can take place without destruction of the former[identity] condition (1912/1994, p. 174). While reproduction created anew generation, it also destroyed the original identity of both the maleand female. The interweaving of the idea of sacrifice, comprising both love anddeath (destruction), implied that nothing new can come into being withoutdestruction of the old order. The individual, she said, must strongly hungerfor this new creation in order to place its own destruction in creationsservice (Spielrein, 1912/1994, p. 156). In other words, reproductionpredominated over survival, since the singular aims of the individual did notalways harmonize with the collective aims of reproduction. As Spielreinsaid, We see that the collective desires living within us do not correspond topersonal desires (1912/1994, p. 162).