Sabina Spielrein: photo, biography, fate, personal life, works, quotes Shpilrein Sabina Nikolaevna. Jung and Sabina Spielrein

Shpilrein-Sheftel Sabina Nikolaevna is known to the world as a Soviet psychoanalyst and student of Karl Gustave Jung, a member of three psychoanalytic societies and author of the theory of destructive attraction. But no less interesting than the results of professional activity are her biography and the way to science.

Intriguing facts contain her diaries and correspondence between Jung and Freud, published in the early 80's, which made a furor in the world of psychoanalysis. The secrets of this woman's life still generate more questions than answers.

Parents of Sabina

Shpilrein Sabina Nikolaevna, whose real name is Sheyve, was the eldest of the children. She was born on October 25 (old style November 7) in 1885 in a fairly rich Jewish family. At that time they lived in Rostov-on-Don. Father insisted that her daughter could visit the prestigious kindergarten in Warsaw, in the homeland of her parents. Therefore, from 1890 to 1894, the family was there.

The father and head of the family - Nikolai Arkadievich Shpilrein (Naftael, or Naftuliy Movshevich, or Moshkovich) - by education was an entomologist, but did not become a profession and succeeded in trade. He was a manufacturer and seller of fodder for cattle. Later Nikolai Arkadievich became a merchant first, and after the second guild.

Mom, Evva Markovna Lublinskaya (after the marriage Spielrein), was a dentist by education. She had her apartment house on three floors in the center of the city, where apartments were rented. She practiced dentistry until 1903, after which she devoted herself to the family and the upbringing of children. There were many respected rabbis in her family, including Evna Markovna's father.

Despite the strictness of the customs and traditions, the family led a secular way of life.

In 1917, the property of the Spielrein family was confiscated.

Fates of brothers and sisters

The eldest of the brothers, Jan, was born in 1887. Subsequently, he became a famous Soviet mathematician and engineer, a specialist in theoretical mechanics and electrical engineering. By 1921, he was already a professor, in 1933 became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1934 he defended his doctoral dissertation in the field of technical sciences. He was married to Sylvia Borisovna Ryss.

The second brother, Isaac, was born in 1891. He chose psychology for himself as a profession and studied at the Heidelberg and Leipzig universities. I have achieved notable successes in this field of knowledge, as I was remembered by the domestic and world scientific community as the author of psychotechnics. He studied the psychology of labor, methods of its rationalization, etc., took an active part in the work of its scientific organization in the Soviet Union. In addition, he headed the All-Russian Society of Psychotechnics and Applied Psychophysiology and the International Psychotechnical Association.

The third brother, Emil, born in 1899. After graduating from the Don University, he became an associate professor and dean of the Rostov University at the Faculty of Biology. Emil is more known to the scientific world under the name Spielrein.

All three, despite their position in the scientific world, were shot as a result of political repression: Isaak in 1937, and Jan and Emil in 1938. Later, all three were rehabilitated posthumously.

More than anything in the world, Shpilrein Sabina Nikolaevna loved her younger sister Emilia. But in 1901 a six-year-old girl contracted typhoid fever and soon died.

Sabina's tragedy and other causes of mental disorders

The main reason for Sabine's neurosis is the death of her beloved sister. However, some experts, in particular the doctor of philosophy Renate Höfer (Renate Höfer), which deals with psychotherapy and supervision, is of a different opinion. In Renata's book Psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein, the biography of the heroine is thoroughly studied and framed in a psychological portrait, taking into account all the joyful love experiences and heavy mental anguish. According to the author, the death of her sister was far from the only and not the main cause of this woman's illness.

Renata writes that from the earliest years Sabina Spielrein experienced physical punishment for her father and, very likely, sexual violence from adults. By the age of three, she had already had serious mental disorders that did not leave her at a young age. From the kind of right father's hand that regularly punishes her, she was excited, which led to excessively frequent acts of self-gratification.

From time to time she fantasized about having unlimited power, and this helped her to calm down for a while. Nevertheless, from the age of sixteen, she began to be overcome with nightly fears and hallucinations, and by the age of eighteen, mental seizures began to occur, after which she became depressed.

Psychiatric clinic for Sabina

Sabina Spielrein was a capable student, and nervous disorders did not prevent her in 1903 from graduating from high school with a gold medal. Her passion was medicine, but because of the unstable mental state, the training at the University of Zurich had to be postponed.

First Evva Markovna made an unsuccessful attempt to improve the state of health of her daughter in the Swiss sanatorium of Dr. Geller in the spring of 1904. After that, Sabina was sent to the clinic of Burgholzli, which at that time was in charge of Professor Eigen Bleuler (Eugen Bleuler).

It was there that Carl Jung and Sabine Spielrein first met. First, the head of the girl was engaged in treatment of hysteria, and then Jung - the senior doctor of the clinic and subsequently the deputy chief doctor. Therapy in the clinic lasted about 10 months, from August 1904 to June 1905, after which the treatment became outpatient and lasted until 1909.

Sabina was the first patient Jung tried to heal with psychoanalytic techniques based on Freudian theories. And although there were certain clashes between the patient and the staff, accompanied by suicidal manifestations, the treatment was very successful, which allowed Sabina to implement plans for university education and enter it in April 1905.

Professional activity

During treatment at the clinic, Sabina Spielrein took part in various experiments, including in the associative. In the same place, she became acquainted with the theme of the Jung thesis, which deals with the stratification of the conscious and unconscious - schizophrenia. Therefore, it is absolutely natural that during the training Sabina became interested in psychiatry, psychoanalysis and pedology.

In the spring of 1909, Sabina passed her final exams and went to work at the Burgholzli clinic as an intern. All this time she continued to work on her doctoral dissertation, the scientific leader of which was Jung. Despite the vicissitudes in her personal life, in the spring of 1911 she successfully defended it and published it in a magazine whose editor was her mentor.

From the autumn of 1911 until the spring of 1912, Sabina was in Austria, where she was able to personally recognize Sigmund Freud (Freud) and was admitted to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Then she visited Russia with lectures and there she got acquainted with her future husband - Pavel Naumovich (Faivel Notovich) Sheftel.

In 1913, Sabina Nikolayevna left for Europe. There she was engaged in publications, speeches; Worked in various medical institutions, including Eugen Bleuler, Karl Bonhoeffer, Eduard Clapared; Was engaged in psychoanalysis in Freud and Jung, became a psychoanalyst of Jean Piaget.

In 1923, she returned to Russia and entered the Russian psychoanalytic society. She engaged in professional activities in this field, created a psychotherapeutic orphanage and administered it, conducted lectures.

In 1925, she last spoke at the congress of psychoanalysts. Then she continued to work in the chosen field, printed articles.

Since 1936, psychoanalysis in the USSR was banned.

It is worth noting that Sabina Spielrein placed great hopes on work in Russia. Quotations about this are pretty well known, she returned "to work with pleasure" - the occupation of science gave her real pleasure. However, in these last 20 years of her life, the Soviet regime left her without the cause of all life.

Scientific work

The Sabine theory Spielrein talks about the duality of sexual attraction. On the one hand, the sexual act must carry positive emotions, especially since this process is associated with the continuation of the genus. On the other hand, it acts destructively on the inner world of man.

In addition, asserted Spielrein, during the act there is a definite disintegration of the main extracts - the masculine principle acquires the features of the female, and vice versa. Moreover, pleasure and fear are destructive for the sexual drive itself.

Hence there is an intrapersonal conflict. Sabina Spielrein noticed that many of her patients, if possible, realize the desire to develop fear and desire to escape, fear of being the top of everything, and after that there will be nothing like this.

In addition, Spielrein first raises the question of the attraction to death as the primary instinct of human existence, about masochism, denoting the sadistic component as a destructive attraction.

Sabina Spielrein: personal life

She became aware of Sabina's love for her doctor in the fall of 1905. The girl's mother even wanted Freud to continue treatment, but everything was still due to other circumstances.

Sabina Spielrein herself never concealed her feelings for Jung, and, as records in the diary testify, she even wanted a child from him. In the summer of 1908, Jung confessed that the girl was extremely sympathetic to him, and that he was no longer able to restrain his desire for her (despite the presence of his wife). From that moment on, not only psychoanalysis began to unite them.

While working in the clinic, their relationship had a conflict, and later, in the spring of 1909, Jung left work. Then Sabina began to correspond with Freud. Jung after the scandal and open public details of their relationship stated that he was a supporter of polygamy.

In 1909, relations with Jung Sabina resumed to work on the thesis. In 1912, she married Sheftel, and at the end of 1913 they were born the first daughter of Renata (Irma Renata), and in the summer of 1926 - the second girl named Eva.

In the period from 1913 to 1925-1926. Sabina and her husband did not live. He was in Rostov, she - in Europe and since 1924 in Moscow, but after the couple resumed their relationship. During this time, Sheftel got along with another woman, who gave birth to his daughter.

In the summer of 1937 Sheftel died of a heart attack, although there were suggestions that he committed suicide because of fear of repression. In 1941, Sabina Spielrein-Sheftel refused to believe in the brutality of the German soldiers and did not evacuate from Rostov. In July 1942, the house where Sabina lived with her daughters was burnt.

On August 11-12, 1942, tens of thousands of Jews, among whom were Sabina Shpilrein-Sheftel and her two daughters, were shot in the Zmiya Gully.

Epilogue. Jung-Sabine-Freud

In the late 70's in the archive of Edward Clapareda was found a suitcase with personal materials Sabina. It turned out that before leaving for Russia she left there her diaries, correspondence with Jung and Freud (which she had conducted until 1923), some articles and research materials. These documents, in particular diaries and letters, produced the effect of an exploding bomb on the world scientific community.

It turned out that from the very beginning of Sabina Jung's treatment and the manifestations of her feelings for him, Freud was aware of this. However, he did not condemn his colleague, since he did not consider this something immoral or wrong, and even sympathized with him to some extent. Evaluating this position of Freud, analysts began to talk about "collusion" between Jung and Freud, a small change in which became Sabina.

Jung then needed the material to write a dissertation, and Sabina was not only an appropriate option, including in terms of financial security, but also a very interesting personality that pushed the scientist to new ideas. There is no doubt about this, because both Jung and Freud used the ideas voiced by Sabina in their further work. Therefore, the continued work with her for Jung was much more necessary than the observance of morality, especially, according to Freud himself, for the world of psychoanalysis, the connection of the doctor with the patient is not news.

On the other hand, in addition to mental suffering from undivided feelings, acquaintance with these two men gave her the world of psychoanalysis and the whole life.

Sabina Spielrein became the first woman in Europe to defend a doctorate in psychology. She was among the "pioneers" of psychoanalysis, but was forgotten for half a century. And only the opening of the archive gave her and her works a second life. Based on the documents, several films were shot, books were written. And in fact, this interest is fully justified.