Sabina Spielrein
Russian physician and early psychoanalyst
Russian physician and psychoanalyst who trained in Zurich, presented a 1912 paper on destruction and creation that Freud later cited, and worked in Geneva and Moscow. She and her two daughters were killed in Rostov-on-Don in 1942.
Why this person matters
Spielrein shows how early psychoanalysis included women trained in medicine, and how unevenly their work was credited. Freud cited her paper in a footnote, she worked at the Rousseau Institute with colleagues including Jean Piaget, and she later held a chair in child psychology in Moscow.
Main contributions
Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being
She presented this paper to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on 27 November 1912. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) Freud wrote that a considerable part of his speculation had been anticipated in her work, while calling it not entirely clear to him.
Clinical and child work
She took an MD at Zurich in 1911 with a dissertation on the language of a patient with schizophrenia. From 1920 she worked at the Rousseau Institute in Geneva, where she published twenty papers by 1923, and in Moscow she held a chair in child psychology.
Context and limits
Spielrein was a patient at the Burghölzli hospital in Zurich before her medical studies and later worked with Carl Jung. Scholars disagree about the nature of their relationship, and some argue that Jung breached professional ethics. Her diaries and letters, left at the Rousseau Institute, were identified decades later and shaped later accounts. She and her two daughters were shot by an SS death squad in Rostov-on-Don in 1942, during the Holocaust.
In your introductory course
Personality.Appears in history and personality chapters as an early woman psychoanalyst whose 1912 paper on destruction was cited by Freud, and whose life links Jung, Freud and Piaget.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 11.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1911
Received her MD from the University of Zurich.
- 1912
Presented her paper on destruction to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.
- 1920
Took a staff position at the Rousseau Institute in Geneva.
- 1923
Moved to Moscow, with Freud's support, to develop psychoanalysis there.
Sources
- Psychology's Feminist Voices, Sabina Nikolayevna SpielreinSociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- Wikipedia, Sabina SpielreinReference work. Reference article inspected.