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.