Sabina Spielrein

Aus einem Kommentar von Mary Jo Bang zu ihrem Gedicht Compulsion in Theory and Practice: Principles and Controversies:

The facts are that in August 1904, when Spielrein was 18, and Jung was 29 and married, she became his first patient at the Burghölzli Clinic in Zurich. He treated her for what was then known as hysteria. She went on to become an object of Jung’s lust (whether it was acted upon isn’t verifiable); Jung drew Freud into her case and Freud’s awareness of Jung’s feelings served as a prompt for Freud’s theory of transference and countertransference. Spielrein also serves as a case history of sexual compulsion. She later graduated from medical school and became one of the first female psychoanalysts. She wrote and published and had a professional relationship with Freud, whose ideas she influenced. In a footnote in Beyond the Pleasure Principle he notes that her work anticipates his. In August 1942, Spielrein and her two daughters were executed in Russia, along with over 26,000 others, by a Nazi death squad.