Sabina Spielrein

Book excerpt: Sabina Spielrein is perhaps best known for her love affair with her doctor, Carl Gustav Jung. She met Jung when she was admitted to Burghölzli Clinic in Zürich in 1904 as a young woman of 19, where Jung diagnosed the highly intelligent woman as hysteric. Their intense relationship gave rise to some of the most important ideas within psychoanalysis and analytical psychology today, notably the death instinct. Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis is an invaluable collection of papers that attempt to answer why Spielrein's story and work have remained in the dark for so long. The distinguished editors draw together Jung's hospital records of his treatment of Spielrein, commentaries on her relationship with Jung, extracts from Spielrein's diary, Jung's letters to Spielrein, and short theoretical pieces from her groundbreaking paper on the development of language "The origin of the child's words Papa and Mama", to shed new light on one of the first women psychoanalysts' life and work. Illustrated by historical documents that have never before been published in English book form, Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis encourages and facilitates further historical research into, and development of the ideas we've inherited from Sabina Spielrein's treatment, writing and relationships. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, analytical psychologists, psychotherapists, historians, students and all those interested in the history of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic ideas.