Sabina Spielrein and the Beginnings of Psychoanalysis: Image, Thought, and Language

395 Pages·2019·31.364 MB·

by  Pamela Cooper-White (editor), Felicity Brock Kelcourse (editor)

“This fascinating book fills a large gap, and provides an important cor-

rective, showing Sabina Spielrein as an original and innovative psycho-
analytic thinker in her own right, not as a minor or romantic character
between Jung and Freud, nor as one who primarily borrowed from them
and Piaget, for example. Cooper-White and Kelcourse, along with
Harris and Naszkowska, give us Spielrein as one of the truly influen-
tial women in early psychoanalysis, despite erasure and non-citation.
Accessible translations of her writings allow us to hear her own extraor-
dinary voice.”
– Donna M. Orange, Ph.D., Psy.D., New York Postdoctoral Program
in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, New York, USA

Sabina Spielrein and the
Beginnings of Psychoanalysis
Sabina Spielrein stands as both an important and tragic fi gure – misun-
derstood or underestimated by her fellow analysts (including Jung and
Freud) and often erased in the annals of psychoanalytic history. Her
story has not only been largely forgotten, but actively (though uncon-
sciously) repressed as the figure who represented a trauma buried in
the early history of psychoanalysis.
Sabina Spielrein and the Beginnings of Psychoanalysis joins the
growing field of scholarship on Spielrein’s distinctive and significant
theoretical innovations at the foundations of psychoanalysis and
serves as a new English language source for many of Spielrein’s key
works. The book includes:
• Four chapters by Felicity Brock Kelcourse, Pamela Cooper- White,
Klara Naszkowska, and Adrienne Harris spanning Spielrein’s
life and exploring her works in depth, with new insights about
her influence not only on Jung and Freud, but also on Piaget in
Geneva and Vygotsky and Luria in Moscow.
• A timeline providing readers with important historical context
including Spielrein, Freud, Jung, other theorists, and historical
events in Europe (1850– 1950).
• Twelve new translations of works by Spielrein, ten of which are
the first ever translations into English from the original French,
German, or Russian.
Spielrein’s life and works are currently undergoing a serious and neces-
sary critical reclamation, as the fascinating chapters in this book attest.
Sabina Spielrein and the Beginnings of Psychoanalysis will be of great
significance to all psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists,
analytical psychologists, and scholars of psychoanalysis interested in
Spielrein and the early development of the field.
Pamela Cooper- White is the Christiane Brooks Johnson Professor of
Psychology and Religion, Union Theological Seminary, New York,
and 2013– 2014 Fulbright– Freud Scholar of Psychoanalysis, Vienna,
Austria. She is the author of seven books including most recently
Old and Dirty Gods:  Religion, Antisemitism, and the Origins of
Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2017).
Felicity Brock Kelcourse is Associate Professor of Psychology of
Religion and Pastoral Psychotherapy at Christian Theological
Seminary in Indianapolis. Her most recent books include (as editor
and contributor) Human Development and Faith, 2nd edition (Chalice,
2015) and Transforming Wisdom: Pastoral Psychotherapy in Theological
Perspective, co-edited with K. Brynolf Lyon (Cascade, 2015).
The Relational Perspectives Book Series (RPBS) publishes books that grow out
of or contribute to the relational tradition in contemporary psychoanalysis.
The term relational psychoanalysis was first used by Greenberg and Mitchell1
to bridge the traditions of interpersonal relations, as developed within interper-
sonal psychoanalysis and object relations, as developed within contemporary
British theory. But, under the seminal work of the late Stephen A. Mitchell,
the term relational psychoanalysis grew and began to accrue to itself many
other influences and developments. Various tributaries – interpersonal psycho-
analysis, object relations theory, self psychology, empirical infancy research,
and elements of contemporary Freudian and Kleinian thought – flow into this
tradition, which understands relational configurations between self and others,
both real and fantasied, as the primary subject of psychoanalytic investigation.
We refer to the relational tradition, rather than to a relational school, to
highlight that we are identifying a trend, a tendency within contemporary
psychoanalysis, not a more formally organized or coherent school or system
of beliefs. Our use of the term relational signifies a dimension of theory
and practice that has become salient across the wide spectrum of contem-
porary psychoanalysis. Now under the editorial supervision of Lewis Aron,
Adrienne Harris, Steven Kuchuck, and Eyal Rozmarin, the RPBS originated
in 1990 under the editorial eye of the late Stephen A. Mitchell. Mitchell was
the most prolific and influential of the originators of the relational tradition.
Committed to dialogue among psychoanalysts, he abhorred the authoritar-
ianism that dictated adherence to a rigid set of beliefs or technical restrictions.
He championed open discussion and comparative and integrative approaches
and he promoted new voices across the generations.
Included in the RPBS are authors and works that come from within
the relational tradition and extend and develop that tradition, as well as
works that critique relational approaches or compare and contrast them
with alternative points of view. The series includes our most distinguished
senior psychoanalysts, along with younger contributors who bring fresh
vision. A full list of titles in this series is available at www.routledge.com/
mentalhealth/ series/ LEARPBS.
Note

1 Greenberg, J. & Mitchell, S. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalytic
theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Sabina Spielrein and the

Beginnings of Psychoanalysis
Image, Thought, and Language
Edited by Pamela Cooper- White and
Felicity Brock Kelcourse
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Pamela Cooper- White and
Felicity Brock Kelcourse; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
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and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Cooper-White, Pamela, 1955– editor. | Kelcourse, Felicity Brock,
editor. | Spielrein, Sabina. Works. Selections. English.
Title: Sabina Spielrein and the beginnings of psychoanalysis : image,
thought, and language / edited by Pamela Cooper-White and Felicity Brock Kelcourse.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018046086 (print) | LCCN 2018047071 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781315104324 (e-Book) | ISBN 9781351597760 (Adobe) |
ISBN 9781351597753 (ePub3) | ISBN 9781351597746 (Mobipocket) |
ISBN 9781138098633 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138098657 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Spielrein, Sabina. | Psychoanalysts. | Psychoanalysis.
Classification: LCC BF109.S65 (ebook) |
LCC BF109.S65 S33 2019 (print) | DDC 616.89/17–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046086
ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 09863- 3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 09865- 7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 315- 10432- 4 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
To our parents:

Tom and Connie,
Mitchell and Gioia