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person1905–1937

Sabina Spielrein

Disciplines:
psychoanalysis
jungian psychology
history/russia/germany

Summary

Russian-Jewish psychiatrist who was Jung's patient at the Burghölzli, became his student and briefly his lover, then trained with Freud and became a psychoanalyst herself — contributing the concept of the death drive (Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens) before Freud published it — and was murdered by the Nazis in 1942.

Core Contribution

Contributed the concept of the 'destruction drive' — arguing that sexuality contains an innate destructive component oriented toward self-dissolution — which Freud incorporated into Eros and Thanatos, while her relationship with Jung was the precipitating event for the creation of what became a dangerous method: sexual transference.

Notable Works & Achievements

Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being

Historical Influences

Jung Freud

Intellectual Lineage

Rostov-on-Don RussiaZurich BurghölzliVienna Geneva Rostov-on-Don

Contemporaries & Peers

Jung Freud Piaget

Minds Influenced

Freud Jungian ethicsJungian tradition

Intellectual Posterity

A Dangerous Method Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being Death driveSpielrein as Jungian tragedy

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Sabina Spielrein

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