Sabina Spielrein
1885 – 1942
Sabina Spielrein
Child Psychoanalyst
Physician
Developmental Psychology
“I too was once a human being. My name was Sabina Spielrein.”
Sabina Spielrein was the eldest of five children, born into a Jewish family in Rostov-On-Don, near the modern-day border with Ukraine in 1885. Her upbringing was marked by turbulence, with a volatile marriage between her parents and instances of abuse from both, Spielrein was traumatized from a young age. She shared a close bond with her younger sister, Emilia, whose death at the age of six in 1901 devastated Spielrein and exacerbated the psychiatric symptoms she had already begun to exhibit in childhood.
Spielrein was considered to be a remarkably intelligent child with a wide array of interests and a rebellious spirit. She became involved in a revolutionary socialist youth organization and was caught with illegal literature. In her teenage years, after losing her belief in God, she developed an interest in the sciences and decided to pursue medicine.
At the Burghölzli Hospital
While attempting to enroll in medical courses in Switzerland, Spielrein suffered a mental breakdown and was institutionalized at the Burghölzli Psychiatric Hospital, where she was diagnosed with hysteria. During her nine-and-a-half-month stay, she was treated by two prominent doctors: Dr. Eugene Blueler, who recognized the trauma caused by her father's abuse and forbade family contact, and a young Carl Jung, who was just beginning to use Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic methods.
By 1905, Spielrein’s treatment had been so successful that she was able to begin her medical studies, specializing in psychiatry at the University of Zürich, all while assisting Jung with his word association research. During this time, she also made her first contact with Sigmund Freud, reaching out to him to discuss her relationship with Jung.
Spielrein's studies culminated in the publication of her groundbreaking dissertation in 1911, On The Psychological Content Of A Case Of Schizophrenia, which became the first psychoanalytic dissertation ever published, appearing in the Jahrbuch Journal. Her work was a detailed case study that analyzed the language of a patient with schizophrenia. In her study, Spielrein focused on understanding the inner world of the schizophrenic patient by closely listening and attuning to the patient's word use and associations. Spielrein aimed to identify patterns in the patient's disorganized speech to better understand her thought processes without consulting the patient's medical file. Her analysis proved accurate, and Sigmund Freud later referenced her work in his postscript on the Schreber Case.
Destruction As The Cause Of Coming Into Being
After completing her medical studies, Spielrein moved from Zurich to Vienna. In 1911, at age 26, she became the second woman admitted to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.
Soon after, she presented one of her seminal works, Destruction As The Cause Of Coming Into Being, in which she explored two dialectical inner drives: the drive toward life and the drive toward destruction, later known as the death drive. Biologically, she observed this in the drive towards species preservation, such as when mayflies die after procreation, and in human reproduction, where the sperm and egg dissolve to form a new child. Psychologically, she observed that sexual experiences, while typically pleasurable, often invoked unpleasant emotions like shame that reflected social taboos. Spielrein interpreted the death drive not as literal destruction but as a metaphor for transformation, suggesting that creation necessitates dismantling whatever existed before to enable new beginnings, intertwining acts of creation with destruction.
Spielrein's work is particularly noteworthy as one of the earliest explorations of female sexuality written from a female perspective, offering unique insights absent in the male-dominated psychoanalytic discourse of the time. Her work integrated Jungian and Freudian theories, examining mythological and archetypal themes alongside concepts like libido, neurosis, and repression. Her introduction of the concept of two opposing drives—the life drive and the destructive drive—had a profound impact on psychoanalytic thought. Sigmund Freud later revised his theory of the psyche to include the drive towards destruction, acknowledging Spielrein's influence in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
Today, Spielrein's exploration of the life and death drives offers valuable frameworks for understanding complex human behaviours, such as depression, violence, and humanity's propensity for war. Her work provides insight into why people may engage in self-destructive behaviours that harm their relationships, despite their expressed desire for connection. It also offers insight into the conflicting emotions people experience regarding sex and sexuality. Finally, the influence of her conceptualization can be seen in the work of Otto Kernberg, the founder of transference-focused psychotherapy for personality disorders and a key figure in object relations theory.
Vienna to Geneva
The year after presenting her paper in Vienna, Spielrein married Dr. Pavel Scheftel and moved to Berlin, where she gave birth to her first daughter, Renata. During this time, she published several papers on topics ranging from dream analysis to the unconscious elements at play in the relationship between women and their mothers-in-law. Her 1913 presentation, Contributions To The Understanding Of A Child's Soul, marked a significant shift towards child psychoanalysis – over a decade before Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, commonly considered to be the first child psychoanalysts, began doing so.
This period of Spielrein’s life was interrupted by the beginning of World War I and her husband’s drafting into the Russian army, prompting Spielrein and her daughter to relocate to Lausanne. There, she founded a psychoanalytic research group and continued to publish papers on child psychoanalysis. However, her circumstances dramatically worsened in 1917 when her family lost their fortune during the Russian Revolution, leaving Spielrein destitute almost overnight. This hardship likely influenced her decision to accept a position at the Rousseau Institute in Geneva, an institution dedicated to educational sciences. She announced her move at the 6th Congress of the International Psychoanalytical Association at The Hague in September 1920. At this congress, she also delivered her paper, On The Question Of The Origin And Development Of Speech, which introduced concepts she would later turn into her comprehensive theory of child development during her time at the Rousseau Institute. During her tenure, she continued her research on child development, publishing nearly 20 papers and playing a pivotal role in establishing psychoanalysis in the educational context.
When Jean Piaget, whose theory of cognitive development significantly influenced contemporary views on early childhood education, arrived at the Institute, he began working closely with Spielrein, who was his psychoanalyst for eight months. Their mutual influence is clearly reflected in both their work from this time, as evident in the similarities between their theories of development.
Spielrein and Piaget’s models both described a dual-function, three-stage theory of language and thought development. While both Spielrein and Piaget recognized the subconscious aspects of the conscious mind, Spielrein's theory focused on the unconscious life of children, outlining how thought and language emerge from genetic foundations through interactions with others. Her stages begin with private speech, consisting of rhythms, cries, and physical gestures which caregivers learn to interpret, before progressing to an intermediate stage known as magical speech where the child can use language but has not yet determined the difference between fantasy and reality. By the final stage, social speech, the child and caregiver have developed a robust shared vocabulary. Spielrein's description of these meaning-laden exchanges between infants and caregivers and their role in the development of language was not only recognized several years ahead of Piaget's theories but also predates Lacan's theory of language and Ed Tronick's theory of mutual regulation.
Home to Russia
In 1923, Spielrein ended up in Moscow and became deeply involved in the rapidly expanding field of psychoanalysis. She worked at the Detski Dom Psychoanalytic Orphanage–Laboratory and was a prominent member of the Moscow Psychoanalytic Institute and the Russian Psychoanalytic Society, where she was elected Chair in 1924. Her courses on child development at the Institute were particularly popular, attracting over thirty candidates at a time, including notable figures such as the developmental psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky and the father of modern neuropsychology, Alexander Luria. Although her visa application indicated that the move was intended to be temporary, Spielrein remained in Russia for the rest of her life. In a letter to a colleague, Spielrein expressed her frustration at being separated from her home, remarking:
As political tensions escalated after Stalin’s rise to power, Spielrein returned to her birthplace, Rostov-On-Don, where she eventually gave birth to her second daughter, Eva. In 1929, she presented a paper at a Congress of Psychiatry and Neuropathology, reaffirming her commitment to psychoanalysis and advocating for greater emotional engagement between psychoanalysts and their patients—a practice that remains fundamental to effective psychotherapy today. Her final paper, published in 1931, Children's Drawings Done With Open And Closed Eyes: Investigations Of Subliminal Kinaesthetic Ideas detailed her research methods and presented the results of an experiment exploring the impact of kinaesthetic experience on conscious thought.
By 1936, the sweeping prohibitions under Stalin's regime led to a ban on all forms of psychology and psychotherapy, including the institutes and societies Spielrein, now 51 years old, had been actively involved in. After the loss of her ability to officially practice psychoanalysis, Spielrein was able to secure work as a part-time doctor at a children's school. Evidence suggests that she continued to treat patients despite the great risk of imprisonment or death for doing so. She maintained a correspondence with a writer, analyzing his dreams. Her home–which included a secluded room with no windows and only a sofa for furniture likely served as a private space where she continued to see patients.
Significant personal losses marked her life during this time; between 1937 and 1938, she lost her husband, father, and three brothers, the latter being executed during the Stalinist purges. Still, in the face of these tragedies and the harsh conditions that prematurely aged her, Spielrein continued her work. Friends and family who knew her during this time remembered her as being well-mannered, friendly and gentle.
Spielrein At The End And After
In July 1942, during the Nazi invasion of Rostov-On-Don, Spielrein and her two daughters, Renata and Eva, were last seen being marched to Zmeyevsky (Snake) Ravine, where they were murdered and buried in a mass grave. It was likely that Spielrein had the opportunity to escape as many of her colleagues did. However, individual travel had been heavily restricted in Russia for quite some time, making it difficult for some Soviet psychoanalysts to obtain government permission to attend the International Psychoanalytic Congresses, which were the easiest escape route. For Spielrein, escape was far less accessible than it was for many of her Western European colleagues, hampered by severe financial constraints, a young child and the restrictive travel policies in Russia as she was. Furthermore, after the overwhelming personal losses she had suffered in recent years, she may have found it emotionally unbearable to confront the reality that much of Western Europe—her home for most of her adult life—had not only become dangerous but was now controlled by a regime actively seeking her death. Her niece later recalled that, in her final years, Spielrein refused to believe the reports of Nazi atrocities, perhaps reflecting a deep unwillingness to face the horrific truth of what was unfolding.
After her death, Spielrein’s legacy faded into obscurity for nearly 30 years. Despite being one of the most accomplished psychoanalysts of her era—her work referenced by luminaries such as Freud, Jung, Melanie Klein, Jean Piaget, and Sandor Ferenczi—her contributions were largely forgotten. The majority of her papers, entrusted to Édouard Claparède at the Rousseau Institute when she left for Russia, languished in the Institute's basement. It wasn’t until the 1970s that her work was rediscovered, transcribed, and translated into multiple languages. Since then, a committed group of scholars from the International Association for Spielrein Studies has worked tirelessly to restore her legacy.
Spielrein is now being recognized not only as a pioneer in psychoanalysis and child development but also as one of the many women whose innovative and meaningful work was unjustly erased from history. Her contributions are finally being acknowledged alongside the field’s greatest minds, reaffirming her rightful place as a transformative figure in the history of psychotherapy.
A note on the relationship between Spielrein and Jung: The two had a complicated relationship, the exact nature of which has been the subject of much speculation. Whatever happened between them does not change the fact that they were incredibly and – on Jung's part – inappropriately close (he was her doctor, teacher and dissertation adviser). Additionally, much of Spielrein's own story and contributions have been overshadowed by the intense interest in the specific nature of her relationship with Jung. There has been comparatively little mention of her life beyond the end of their relationship, erasing some of her career's most productive years.
What is known is that Spielrein and Jung significantly influenced each other's early work. Jung cites Spielrein many times in Symbols of Transformation and in volumes 3, 4, 7, 11 and 13 of his Collected Works. Spielrein's deep understanding of Jung's ideas allowed her to produce some of the only psychoanalytic writings that successfully integrated both Freudian and Jungian concepts that were accepted and respected by both men.
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Website Name: The Matilda Project
Title of Entry: Sabina Spielrein
Author: Alyksandra Ackerman
Illustrator: Olga Kurkina
Editor: Shehroze Saharan
Original Publication Date: December 04, 2024
Last Updated: December 04, 2024
Copyright: CC BY-NC-ND
Webpage Specific Tags: Sabina Spielrein; Psychoanalysis; Early female psychoanalyst; Carl Jung; Sigmund Freud; Analytical psychology; Pioneer in child psychology; Developmental psychology; Death instinct theory; Freud-Jung correspondence; Zurich Psychoanalytic Society; "Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being"; Women in psychology; Russian-Jewish scientist; Vienna Psychoanalytic Society; Education and psychoanalysis; First female psychoanalyst in Russia; Contribution to psychoanalytic theory; Intellectual history of psychoanalysis; Psychoanalysis and feminism; Early studies on schizophrenia; Cultural and historical perspectives in psychology; Legacy in psychoanalysis; Advocacy for women in science; Jung’s patient turned collaborator; Innovative psychoanalytic theories; Impact on modern psychology.
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APA Citation:
Ackerman, A. (2024, December 4). Sabina Spielrein. The Matilda Project. www.thematildaproject.com/scientists/sabina-spielrein
Author
Alyksandra Ackerman
Student Psychotherapist - Ontario Psychotherapy & Counseling College
Alyksandra Ackerman is a student psychotherapist at the Ontario Psychotherapy and Counseling College in Toronto who is researching the erasure of women and racialized people from the early history of psychotherapy. Her main focus is on understanding how this erasure happened, how it continues to be perpetuated in the modern day and how it can be recognized and corrected. When she isn’t studying or seeing clients she is focused on creating communities for fellow students and social advocacy. She would like to thank Matthew McLaren, Klara Naszkowska, and John Leonard for their help, without which Spielrein’s story would be incomplete.
Illustrator