History of women in psychoanalysis: Sabina Spielrein

Abstract

The present article seeks to promote a critical, biographical, historical, and theoretical recovery of the trajectory of Sabina Spielrein (1885-1942), a Russian psychoanalyst and one of the first women to contribute to the development of psychoanalysis. The methodological foundation is structured upon bibliographic research, based on the studies of authors such as COSTA and SILVA (2018), as well as the fundamental works of CAROTENUTO (1984), ROUDINESCO and PLON (1998), and VAN DER VEER and VALSINER (2001), alongside Volumes 1 and 2 of the Complete Works of S. SPIELREIN, organized by Renata U. Cromberg (2021). The paper analyzes how Spielrein's contributions were historically marginalized in traditional accounts regarding the emergence of the psychoanalytic movement. Admitted to the Burghölzli Hospital as a patient diagnosed with severe hysteria, Spielrein transitioned to the role of physician, researcher, and vanguard analyst. This study analyzes her intellectual production, her doctoral thesis on schizophrenia (the first to have a psychoanalytic orientation), her conceptual elaboration of destruction as a driving force of becoming—which anticipated the Freudian death drive—as well as her pioneering role in child psychoanalysis in Switzerland and the Soviet Union, where she collaborated with Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Alexander Luria. This work seeks to reposition Spielrein not as a passive link between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, but as an original and transdisciplinary theorist.