Encountering the Other
Q, December, 2003
by Kathy Mays, Ph.D
In October, I attended the North American Conference
of Jungian Analysts held in Montreal, Quebec. The theme of this year's conference
was THE OTHER; Explorations of Alterity in Analytical Psychology.
The focus was on the relationship between Self and Other that lies not only in
our outer relationships, but also at the foundation of the intra-psychic world
within each of us, i.e., our individual relationship to the Unconscious. These
relationships to others and the relationship between our egos and the Unconscious
are the gateways to personal and collective growth, to the imaginal world, and
to soul.
Some of the presenters looked at our world situation
and the collective experience of Other that manifests itself in terrorism, while
other presenters pulled the topic of terror and issues of safety into the interior
world of the individual, exploring the relevance from a psychoanalytic and clinical
perspective. Personal development issues, clinical issues (such as anxiety, panic,
and insomnia), the use of the imaginal, as well as aspects such as formation of
relationship to Other from anthropological perspectives and infant development
theory were examined.
The Conference ended with the viewing and discussion
of the new film: My
Name was Sabina Spielrein. In this powerful award-winning documentary
by Swedish filmmaker Elizabeth Marton about the life and works of Dr. Spielrein,
the actual letters of Freud, Jung, Spielrein and Bleuler, as well as more recently
uncovered documents, are presented from Sabina's perspective in a very sensitive
and thought-provoking manner. The film has been showing to packed houses across
Europe this past summer and has recently been making its way into psychoanalytic
and Jewish communities in the USA.
The relationship between Spielrein and C.G. Jung began
in 1904, while Jung (age 29) was working at the Burgholzli Clinic in Zurich. Sabina,
a young Jewish woman of 19, was his patient. At this historically important moment
in the development of psychoanalysis, Jung was also becoming involved in his relationship
with Freud. Spielrein, while undergoing psychoanalytic treatment with Jung, was
drawn into a personal relationship with him that lasted many years. She later
went on, with his encouragement, to become a doctor and the first woman psychoanalyst.
During her treatment at the Burgholzli, Spielrein
suffered from uncontrollable tidal waves of destructive Otherness rising up from
within her own unconscious. As her treatment by Jung developed and her relationship
with him blossomed, these threatening encounters with Other seemed to transform
into gentle movements of creative and life-giving Eros, initially mirrored back
to her by Jung. While this movement of Eros was being constellated both within
Sabina and in her relationship with Jung, the collective situation around them
reflected the opposite. Waves of hatred were rising up within the European collective
unconscious, eventually sweeping over the continent and engulfing the entire period
of history in a destructive storm. What impacted me most about the documentary
were the creative and destructive forces evident within Spielrein's inner world,
in her relationship with Jung and within the historical moment in which they lived.
Dr. Spielrein's doctoral dissertation was entitled Destruction
as the Cause of Coming ino Being and was to have been published in 1912,
but instead fell into obscurity, and her ideas were taken up by both Jung and
Freud. There has always been a question about the extent of the relationship
between Jung and Spielrein on many levels, and also about just how much of her
work Jung may have adopted as his own, giving her little or no credit (see references
below). After viewing this documentary, I no longer had a question. Dr.
Spielrein was not only helped by Jung, but was later silenced and patronized by
him, eventually disappearing both from Jung's life and from the psychoanalytic
community, with all traces of her vanishing in 1937. It has since been learned
that she and her daughter were shot by the Nazis in Russia. While Dr. Spielrein's
life ended in obscurity when she was only 55, Jung continued to increase in stature
and reputation.
Through the eyes of Dr. Spielrein, this film's historically
accurate account gave me yet another insight into the lives of Jung and Freud
as men and on the history of psychoanalysis. It provided another perspective on
the psychological treatment of women and on the development of our current psychiatric
diagnostic criteria, which still reflect this treatment. It also gave me another
glimpse of the deeper currents of archetypal energies that underpin and make up
all relationships with Other, whether within oneself or to the outer world, reminding
me just how necessary relating to Otherness is for our development on all levels.
The emotional impact of this powerful film will
stay with me. The portrayal of Sabina's strength of spirit in facing incredible
Otherness -- both in her inner life and in the world in which she lived -- serves
to uplift my own sometimes weary spirit, which feels the daily impact and influences
of Otherness, now merely cloaked in a different historical and cultural context.
I highly recommend viewing this film if one has the opportunity.
Other sources on the Spielrein/Jung relationship:
John Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method, New York, 1993;
Aldo Carotenuto, A Secret Symmetry, Pantheon, New York, 1982;
Colleen Covington, Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis,
Brunner-Routledge, 2003 (just released);
The Soul Keeper — A fictionalized movie about Sabina Spielrein, not historically
accurate, according to experts.
