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“Beyond Freud and Jung”: Sabina Spielrein’s Contribution to Child Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology

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Abstract

Up to the present day, Sabina Spielrein has been seen as a means to deeper understanding of Freud and Jung and, in particular, the relationship between these two “great men”. This is also the reason why her scholarly achievements after her 1912 essay "Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being” are hardly taken into account. This study shows that Spielrein's main research work was in the areas of child analysis and developmental psychology—that is, beyond the work and the persons of Freud and Jung—and that she made numerous significant contributions to the field, so many of them ahead of her time.

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Notes

  1. This 1912 essay is the subject of the article by Pamela Cooper-White in this Symposium.

  2. Hug-Hellmuth was analyzed by Isidor Sadger and later murdered by her own nephew—the object of Hug-Hellmuth's studies from infancy on.

  3. Spielrein can be located in the obligatory group picture of the Congress participants in the second row on the right.

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Correspondence to Isabelle Noth.

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Noth, I. “Beyond Freud and Jung”: Sabina Spielrein’s Contribution to Child Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. Pastoral Psychol 64, 279–286 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-014-0621-5

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