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My Name Was Sabina Spielrein

Eva Österberg, Lasse Almebäck, Mercedez CsampaiMy Name Was Sabina Spielrein
Sabina Spielrein | Carl Jung | Sigmund Freud | Jean Piaget | Eugen Bleuler | Otto Gross | morphine | Wilhelm Stekel
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"My name was Sabina Spielrein." (0:00)

Narrator: "... hysteria, a difficult case."
"Cases like these can be analysed very satisfactorily."
"You must become a psychiatrist."
"In 1977 the diaries and letters... were found... correspondence with two of the pioneers of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung... search for the innermost secrets of the human psyche." (0:01)

Narrator: "a female patient is admitted to the lunatic asylum, Burgholzli in Zurich... treating her... psychoanalysis... Carl Gustav Jung." (0:02)

Jung: "Mother... hysterical... Has hysterical fits... One brother has hysterical weeping spasms... another has tics... Preliminary diagnosis...hysteria" (0:03)

Narrator: "Hysteria was commonly diagnosed among women... treatment was electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, and hypnosis... Sigmund Freud... suppression... interpretation of dreams. In his case record Carl Gustav Jung writes... states of agitation... Suicide attempts... Afterwards there is always a deep depressive reaction." (0:06)

Narrator: "The progressive hospital director, Prof. Eugen Bleuler, considered to be the founder of modern psychiatry, establishes a psychology laboratory in which Jung... complexes..." (0:09)

Free association recorded along with physiological monitoring. (0:09)

Sabina: "... after three hours of analysis... this complex... My name was Sabina Spielrein." (0:11)

Sabina: "Grandmother, who I loved most of all, is dead... hard to live on this earth. Emilia is also dead."
"Interpretation of Dreams" (0:15)

Letter: "Dreams are auto-suggestion, illusion, hallucination." (0:16)

"... discharged from the clinic after ten months of treatment... Prof. Bleuler..." (0:17)

"You must become a psychiatrist."
"... insanely happy... the reason for it is Jung." (0:18)

Narrator: "Thus wrote Jung in a referral requested by her mother to Freud... remained Jung's analysis patient." (0:19)

Narrator: "Jung becomes troubled... asks... Sigmund Freud for advice... correspondence so significant for psychoanalysis between Jung and Freud."
Jung writes of "treating an hysteric by your method."
"... compulsive attempts to defecate on her feet..."
Freud writes: "Cases... caused by suppressed perversion can be analyzed very satisfactorily... cures are brought about by fixation of the libido prevailing in the unconscious -- that is, transference -- and that this transference is most readily obtained in hysteria." (0:20)

Narrator: "In Jung she sees the godlike Siegfried... Jung had brought Sabina from the darkness of illness back to life." (0:24)

Sabina: "Thus the sexual complex..." (0:25)

Narrator: "Jung having met Freud for the first time... has become a passionate Freudian." Jung's lecture refers to "Freud's theories."
Narrator: "... Freud's method was unwholesome." (0:27)

Narrator: "Jung suddenly reveals his feelings towards her. He was probably influenced to do so by another patient, doctor and morphine addict Otto Gross... provoked Jung... to recognize his suppressed desires." Jung writes Sabina, "... you took a firm grip on my subconscious. (0:28)

Sabina writes to her mother: "I have more or less hypnotized my Jung, unintentionally."
"Jung has just finished his work... His mother became ill with hysteria... He fell in love with me... an hysteric!. And I love a psychopath!... His search for self-knowledge cannot be better expressed than by Jung." (0:33)

Jung writes to Freud: "At the moment I'm plagued by a 'complex'... patient pulled out of a very sticky neurosis." Jung asks: "Self-assertion, gossip, or paranoia?" (0:37)

A sign reads, "Prof. Dr. Freud"
Jung writes to Freud: "She was... my psychoanalytical test case... Like Gross..."
Freud replies that he must "... control 'countertransference' which is a problem... women charm us... with every possible psychic device..."
Freud writes to Sabina: "Dr. Jung is my friend and colleague..."
Sabina replies: "Dr. Jung was my doctor..."
Narrator: "Freud recognizes the problem of countertransference, that is the analyst's feelings for the patient... his analysis method... placed Jung in this difficult situation."
"Freud... protective of Jung... asks Sabena to repress her emotions." (0:39)

Narrator: Sabina "feels deeply wounded by Jung's breach of confidence'" after she discovers Jung has written a letter to her mother. (0:44)

Jung writes to Freud that Sabina "freed herself from the transference..." (0:45)

Narrator: "... led Freud to the conclusion that an analyst must himself undergo analysis in order to recognize and deal with the strong forces that are released in therapy." (0:47)

Narrator: "Sabina... returns to the Burgholzli... as an aspiring doctor in psychiatry. Under the guidance of Prof. Bleuler and Dr. Jung... writes her thesis on the psychological content of a case of schizophrenia... anxiety..." (0:49)

Narrator: "her study of the death instinct... Jung advises her to sublimate her longing..." (0:51)

Narrator: "Sabina suspects that Jung had used her conclusions about the death instinct in his own paper..." (0:53)

Narrator: "Sabina is the first to describe schizophrenia from a psychoanalytical and feminine perspective... now that Sabina is a medical doctor of psychiatry... spread modern psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Russia." (0:55)

Narrator: "In his study [amazon B0030HKYQK inline]... [Freud] sees the sexual drive and the death instinct as two separate components." (0:59)

Jung writes "... you have understood the death instinct..." (1:01)

Narrator: "To her dismay Sabina discovers that another colleague, Wilhelm Stekel... similar conclusions... his book The Language of Dreams." (1:01)

Sabina writes to Jung about "deepest depression..." (1:02)

Freud writes Sabina: "You are cured of your erotic dependence on Jung." (1:03)

Narrator: "Jung... wrote the letter that split the psychoanalytic community into two camps." (1:05)

Jung writes that Freud "thinks that everything I do... is caused by a complex." (1:05)

Narrator: "[Sabina] publishes... the first work on children in the history of psychoanalysis." (1:08)

Sabina writes, "Can I be a giant in psychiatry?" (1:12)

Jung writes to Sabina about "how the subconscious may steer one's fate... The relationship had to be sublimated..." (1:14)

Narrator: "John Piaget... his pioneering work on child development." (1:16)

Narrator: "deeper insight into child psychology and child analysis" (1:17)

Narrator: "psycho technology was abandoned and its founder Isaac Spielrein, Sabina's brother, was arrested." (1:23)